National Conference wins three, BJP one out of four Rajya Sabha seats in J&K

Srinagar, Oct 24 (IANS) The National Conference (NC) on Friday won three and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) one out of the four Rajya Sabha seats, elections for which were held today.

Election Commission officials said Mohammad Ramzan Chowdhary, Sajad Kichloo and Shami Oberoi of the NC and Sat Sharma of the BJP won the Rajya Sabha seats, voting for which was held at the legislative assembly complex in Srinagar today.

Eighty seven MLAs voted in Friday's Rajya Sabha elections, out of which 86 MLAs voted in person while Doda MLA Mehraj Malik, under detention at present, voted through the postal ballot.

Sajad Lone of the Peoples Conference (PC) abstained from the voting process.

While the NC had a clear edge over three seats, the contest was crucial for the 4th seat as the NC expected to win this seat as well with the support of 6 Congress MLAs, 6 Independents, one of CPI-M, one of Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) and one of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Two assembly seats, one of Nagrota in the Jammu division and the other of Budgam in the Valley, were vacant because these two assembly seats are going to by-poll on November 11.

Budgam fell vacant after Omar Abdullah resigned this seat and decided to represent the Ganderbal constituency in the 90-member J&K legislative assembly.

Omar had won both Budgam and Ganderbal seats in the 2024 elections.

Nagrota seat fell vacant after the BJP MLA, Devender Singh Rana, who won this seat in the 2024 elections, passed away on October 31, 2024.

In the 2024 elections, NC won 42, BJP 29, Congress 6, PDP 3, CPI-M 1, PC 1, AIP 1, AAP 1 and 6 Independents.

Congress later decided to support the NC government headed by Omar Abdullah from outside, while 5 Independents later joined the NC.

--IANS

sq/pgh