‘Do not defer polling for Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat’: Mehbooba Mufti, Omar Abdullah tell EC

Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Friday urged the Election Commission not to delay polling in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha constituency, the Hindustan Times reported.

Voting in the Anantnag-Rajouri constituency is scheduled for May 7.

Mufti and Abdullah’s appeal came a day after the poll body asked Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo and Chief Electoral Officer PK Pole for a report on the “road conditions, weather and accessibility-related constraints” in the constituency, The Hindu reported.

Earlier, the Election Commission had received representations from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Ravinder Raina, Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Conference’s Imran Reza Ansari and Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party’s Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari, among others, alleging that “candidates from Rajouri and Poonch couldn’t file their nomination papers due to closure of Mughal Road in view of snowfall”.

The boundaries of the Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha constituency were redrawn in 2022 by the Jammu and Kashmir Delimitation Commission, which was set up after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in 2019 and bifurcation of the erstwhile state into two Union Territories.

The constituency now comprises Kashmir valley’s Anantnag and the Pir Panjal valley’s Rajouri and Poonch. The two areas are connected by the Mughal Road that remains open seasonally.

On Friday, Abdullah told reporters that the...

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