In A High-Stakes Battle, Mir Mohammad Fayaz Eyes Wresting Kupwara (image: instagram/fayazmiroff)

Former Rajya Sabha member Mir Mohammad Fayaz is Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for Kupwara constituency in North Kashmir. After contesting unsuccessfully from Baramulla Constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Fayaz is putting his best fight for the assembly constituency win.

In the polls, he is pitted against People’s Conference (PC) chief Sajjad Gani Lone, Nasir Aslam Wani of the National Conference (NC), and Peerzada Firdous of the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP). Interestingly, Fayaz is facing his former party chief Lone in the electoral battlefield.

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Fayaz rejoined the PDP in March this year. He returned to the party fold after three years. Fayaz was distant from the PDP after the revocation of Article 370. Resigning from the party, he joined the Lone-led People’s Conference in August 2021. However, in 2023, he parted ways with the PDP and announced his break from active politics for a while.

Following the abrogation of Article 370, many former ministers and legislators quit the PDP and joined the People’s Conference, or Apni Party. Last year, the PDP chief and former chief minister managed to reorganise the party. The PDP leadership believes that the return of the Fayaz to the party will bolster the party’s base in North Kashmir, especially in the Kupwara region.

Fayaz served as a Rajya Sabha member from 2015 to 2021. In the 2014 Assembly elections, he contested unsuccessfully from the Kupwara assembly segment and came in second, losing by a margin of 151 votes. PC’s Bashir Ahmad Dar  who won the seat had secured 24,754 votes and defeated Fayaz by a margin of just 151 votes.

Fayaz and Nazir Ahmad Laway, two PDP MPs, came under severe criticism from different political fronts in 2019 as they abstained from voting against the triple talaq in Parliament, which helped the BJP  pass the bill. Then, National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah accused the PDP chief on social media of helping the BJP-led central government with the required numbers needed to pass the bill.

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This time, Fayaz hopes to win the seat, avenging his defeat in the 2014 polls. Though Lone’s party maintains a strong base in Kupwara, NC, PDP and with the recent Lok Sabha win from Baramulla, AIP also exerts a crucial influence in the assembly segment.