Polling underway in Jammu and Kashmir for four Rajya Sabha seats

Congress, PDP support boosts National Conference’s prospects on the fourth seat

Srinagar: Voting for the elections to the four Rajya Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir — the first since the revocation of Article 370 — is underway at the Legislative Assembly complex in Srinagar, marking a crucial political contest in the Union Territory.

Legislators began casting their ballots at 9 a.m. across three polling booths inside the Assembly complex, with voting scheduled to conclude at 4 p.m. The counting of votes will begin an hour later, and the results are expected in the evening.

The four seats have remained vacant since February 2021, when the terms of former MPs Mir Mohammad Fayaz and Nazir Ahmed Laway (PDP), Shamsher Singh (BJP), and Ghulam Nabi Azad (Congress) ended as there was no elected Assembly in Jammu and Kashmir since June 2018. The Assembly polls were held in September-October last year.

This time, the ruling National Conference (NC) has put up a full slate of four candidates — Choudhary Muhammad Ramzan, Sajad Kichloo, Shammi Oberoi and Imran Nabi Dar — while the BJP is contesting three of the four seats.

A dramatic turn came on the eve of polling when both the Congress and the People's Democratic Party (PDP) publicly declared their support for the NC, significantly tilting the numbers in the party’s favour. The move has effectively consolidated the anti-BJP bloc and bolstered the NC’s chances of sweeping all four seats.

Jammu and Kashmir Congress president Tariq Hamid Karra said the decision reflected the party’s “moral and political responsibility” to keep the BJP from gaining ground in the State.

“Despite our grievances over how the NC has treated the Congress as an ally, we will not let that come in the way of a larger national cause,” Karra said after chairing a meeting of the party’s legislators in Srinagar. “We have decided to offer our six votes to the NC to stop the BJP’s advance.”

In a parallel development, PDP president and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti also declared that her party’s three MLAs would support the NC in the elections.

“The PDP will vote to prevent the BJP from gaining even one seat,” she said. “Although the NC has not been a trustworthy ally, we are supporting its candidate Shammi Oberoi for the third seat. We will not vote for the fourth seat — if the NC loses it, they should not blame the PDP.”

Mehbooba added that the NC could “divert its three surplus votes from the third seat to the fourth” to consolidate its position. She said the decision was guided by the need to “resist fascist and communal forces”.

The PDP chief further revealed that the NC had assured support for two PDP-sponsored bills — the Jammu and Kashmir Land Rights and Regularisation Bill, 2025, and the Regularisation of Daily Wagers Bill — during the ongoing Assembly session.