Those who secretly aided BJP must accept responsibility: Omar
Fixed match between NC, BJP: Lone
Fayaz Bukhari
Srinagar, Oct 24: The ruling National Conference (NC) today won three Rajya Sabha seats while the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged victorious on one seat despite the NC having numbers for the fourth seat.
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The NC candidate Chowdry Mohammad Ramzan was declared the winner on the first seat, and Sajad Kichloo was elected on the second seat.
Chowdry secured 58 votes to claim the first seat, defeating BJP’s Ali Mohammad Mir, who received 28 votes, all from his party MLAs. One vote was rejected.
Kichloo garnered 57 votes against 29 polled by BJP’s Rakesh Kumar. Two votes were declared invalid in this round.
The NC’s treasurer, G S Oberoi, also known as Shammi Oberoi, was declared the winner on the third seat. Oberoi polled 31 votes, one more than the required number.
BJP president Sat Sharma won the fourth seat by securing 32 votes. NC candidate for the seat, Imran Nabi Dar, got 21 votes.
Dar-who had the assured support of 28 or 29 MLAs, polled only 21 votes- seven or eight less than he was to secure. Click here to watch video
NC’s two candidate for 3rd and 4th seat had support of 58 MLAs- 41 NC, six Congress, seven Independents, three PDP MLAs and one CPI (M)- enough to win both 3rd and 4th seats but they managed to get only 51 votes.
The BJP’s victory on fourth seat makes it clear that the party benefited from cross-voting and vote cancellation and an intentional extra vote to Oberoi.
The cross-voting has triggered a war of words between political parties.
The NC candidate Dar said that he has been saying it repeatedly that the BJP does not fight any election in a normal way, and today the truth has come before you.
“The BJP did not have the numbers to win this seat, they had only 28 members. Tell me, how did they get 32 votes? It is evident that horse trading has happened. The BJP has used all its resources to win this seat despite not having the numbers. They have indulged in horse trading because they lacked the numbers,” he said.
“The BJP has 28 MLAs, but Sat Sharma got 32 votes, so these four extra votes cast in their favour were bought. Those who cast these votes had already promised to vote in our favour, and I hope that if they have any conscience, they will come forward and admit that they voted for the BJP,” he said.
“We are working on it and will expose those who cross-voted and broke their promise. Although I am disappointed, I am proud that the NC chose me as their fourth candidate. I was aware that it was a risky contest, but I was sure we would win. However, winning and losing are part of life,” he said.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah alleged possible manipulation in the elections, claiming that the BJP received “four extra votes” despite NC’s tally remaining intact.
Omar in a post on X said, “All of @JKNC_ votes remained intact across the four elections, as witnessed by our election agent who saw each polling slip. There was no cross voting from any of our MLAs, so the questions arise, where did the 4 extra votes of the BJP come from?”
He further questioned, “Who were the MLAs who deliberately invalidated their votes by marking a wrong preference number while voting? Do they have the courage to admit to helping the BJP after promising us their support? What pressure or inducement made them take this step?”
The Chief Minister said it was time for “those who secretly aided the BJP” to come forward and accept responsibility. His remarks follow the Rajya Sabha poll results, where NC won three seats and the BJP secured one after a close contest.
People’s Conference chairman and Handwara MLA Sajad Gani Lone termed the RS polls a “fixed match” between the NC and the BJP.
Lone expressed his disapproval after NC secured three of the four seats and BJP won one seat. “So, BJP wins the fourth seat. As predicted — fixed match. Axis of the evil — NC and BJP. Thank God I abstained. Imagine what my plight would have been,” he wrote in a post on X.
The PC chief alleged that the voting outcomes indicated a pre-arranged understanding between the two parties. He pointed out that the NC cast more votes than necessary for its third candidate, highlighting a potential manipulation. “Why did NC poll extra votes for candidate 3? They didn’t need to. They polled 31 votes for candidate 3. Only 28 or 29 would have sufficed since BJP was contesting for seat four,” he claimed.
He also raised questions regarding cross-voting, rejected ballots, and what he described as “possible hand-in-glove conduct” between the NC and BJP, calling for a thorough scrutiny of the entire voting process.
Chowdry Ramzan told reporters after the win that it was a great victory for the party today. “For this I am thankful to the MLAs of NC, Congress, and AAP. They voted today and got the candidates of the NC to win. We are very thankful to them. This is the victory of the NC, victory of Dr. Farooq Abdullah, victory of our Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah,” he said.
He said that with this victory, the NC once again proved that the decision taken in 2019 was rejected by the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
BJP president Sat Sharma thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jagatprakash Nadda, Amit Shah for fielding him for RS polls. “I would also like to thank the voters whom I appealed to keep their conscience in mind and elect people who work for the benefit of the country, who work for the benefit of the society,” he said.
On cross voting, the BJP leader said: “When you have to vote for conscience, all the people of the political parties were sitting. Is conscience only for Jammu? The question you are asking me, is it only for Jammu? Not for Kashmir? 41 votes were for the NC. They got 60 votes. I have spoken to all the people of conscience”.
“I have spoken to the leaders of all the political parties, irrespective of the party affiliation. And I have requested them that I am a candidate, I want to work for the country, for the society. And I would like to thank those four voters who have voted for me,” he said.
The workers of the NC and BJP celebrated outside the Civil Secretariat in Srinagar late evening after the announcement of the Rajya Sabha election results.
At the gate of the Secretariat, celebrations turned frenzied as the results of all seats were declared. BJP supporters, after hearing of their unexpected win on the fourth seat, arrived and began dancing and shouting slogans in front of NC supporters.
Around 5 PM, supporters of the ruling NC started arriving at the Secretariat gate in Srinagar, holding party flags and raising slogans for their candidates.
Soon, the festive atmosphere turned into a scene of flag-waving from both sides, with supporters of both parties seen shouting for their party and waving flags in front of the Civil Secretariat.
Later, following the celebrations, BJP workers moved to the party headquarters in Jawahar Nagar, to celebrate where Sat Sharma arrived along with senior party leaders, including Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma and several BJP MLAs.
These long-overdue biennial polls, announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in September, were aimed to fill four vacant Upper House seats, unoccupied since February 2021 after the retirement of former members Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mir Mohammad Fayaz, Shamsher Singh, and Nazir Ahmed Laway.
Voting took place at the Legislative Assembly complex here, with 86 of the 88 eligible MLAs (due to two vacancies in the 90-member Assembly) casting ballots at three polling booths from 9 am to 4 pm, followed by counting at 5 pm.
The 75-year-old leader Chowdry Mohammad Ramzan (NC) is a four-time ex-MLA and a former Minister, who was first elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1983 from Handwara in Kupwara district of north Kashmir.
He retained the seat in the 1987 and 1996 elections. After losing in the 2002 polls, Ramzan returned to the Assembly in 2008. However, he lost to Sajad Gani Lone in the 2014 and 2024 assembly elections.
Ramzan was a Minister in the Farooq Abdullah Government in 1996.
Sajad Ahmad Kitchloo (National Conference) (60) comes from an influential political family from the Kishtwar district of J&K. His father, Bashir Ahmad Kitchloo, was an important leader of the party and held key portfolios in the Farooq Abdullah Government in the 1980s and in 1996.
The senior Kitchloo died in 2001 when he was the social welfare minister. Sajad jumped into electoral politics and won the Kishtwar seat in the 2002 polls. He retained the seat in the 2008 elections.
However, Sajad Ahmad Kitchloo lost the assembly polls in 2014 and 2024. He was elected as an MLC in the J&K Legislative Council in 2015.
Oberoi (National Conference), 56, is the second Sikh MP from J&K. Also known as Shammi Oberoi, he is a businessman and holds a diploma in hotel management.
Currently, National Conference’s treasurer, Oberoi, is the son of late party leader and MLC Dharamveer Singh Oberoi. His father was also the chief polling agent of Omar Abdullah during his Parliamentary election in 1999.
Sat Sharma (BJP), 64, the president of the BJP’s J&K Unit, is a Chartered Accountant by profession. He was appointed the BJP’s J-K chief after last year’s Assembly elections in the Union Territory.
This is his second stint as the head of J-K BJP. He had headed the BJP here from 2015 to 2018.
Sharma was a Minister in the PDP-BJP coalition Government for two months. He won the 2014 assembly election from the Jammu West Assembly constituency on a BJP ticket.
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