Jammu, Apr 26 (KNO): As Jammu was voting today for the second phase of Parliamentary elections today, almost all the local parties of Jammu and Kashmir were missing from the political scene of Jammu and their offices were closed on the polling day.
Be it Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), J&K Apni Party, Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) or others, nobody was there as neither of them is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Jammu parliamentary seat.
According to the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), not even the National Conference (NC) office was active in Jammu today but few of their leaders were seen getting people out to vote for Congress party candidate Raman Bhalla.
Two of the major local parties PDP and Apni Party have offices in Gandhinagar area where their gates were locked and nobody was around. The reason for local parties missing from the poll scene and their offices giving a deserted look is that they don’t have any stake in Jammu and wanted to focus on the areas in Kashmir valley.
Going by the statistics available, NC had won two Assembly constituencies during 2014 Assembly elections, which fall in present Jammu Lok Sabha constituency, including Nagrota and Bishnah, when the Modi wave had engulfed entire Jammu region but this time they are nowhere.
For PDP, many influential leaders of Jammu were part of this party during Mufti Muhammad Sayeed’e time and when PDP joined hands with BJP in 2014 to form the coalition government in J&K, their reach was increasing. But after snapping ties with BJP, many leaders have left the party in Jammu. There are few leaders who arrange protest demonstration or press conferences on various issues, but those were also missing during these elections and especially on the polling day. Some of these leaders are busy in campaigning for their party president Mehbooba Mufti in Rajouri and Poonch districts, who are contesting from Anantnag Lok Sabha seat.
J&K Apni Party which was formed by former PDP leader Altaf Bukhari has many leaders from Jammu associated with it but as the party is not contesting Jammu seat, there office was also closed for today and their leaders are busy in campaigning in Rajouri and Poonch districts for party’s candidate Zafar Manhas.
DPAP, the newest of them all, was formed by former Congress stalwart and union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad with a motive to give alternative to the people of Jammu and Kashmir all over but the party didn’t field any candidate from Jammu seat due to which it is also nowhere in sight—(KNO)