J&K BJP Chief Ravinder Raina To Retain Nowshera Seat (image:facebook.com/ImRavinderRaina)

An RSS pracharak, Ravinder Raina, has been serving as the Jammu and Kashmir BJP president since 2017. Known for his hardline approach, recently, Raina hit headlines as the ‘poorest’ among all candidates in the assembly polls.

As per the affidavit submitted by senior BJP leader, except for Rs 1000 cash, he has no savings or investment. He also records he has no vehicle, jewellery, agricultural land, inherited property, non-agricultural land, commercial buildings, investments, or residential building.

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Raina is seeking his second term from the Nowshera constituency of Rajouri district. In the polls, he is encountering a tough challenge from his former party colleague Surinder Choudhary. This is for the second time, Raina and Chaudhary competing against each other for an assembly seat.

Choudhary, National Conference (NC) leader and former MLC, is fighting the elections on an alliance ticket. He left PDP in March 2022 and crossed over to BJP within a week. After a year-long association, he quit the saffron party and joined NC. Chaudhary accused the Jammu and Kashmir BJP chief of encouraging familism and corruption. In response, BJP leader filed a defamation notice on Chaudhar “for levelling baseless allegations” with the sole intention to defame his reputation within the party and the masses.

Aside from the BJP and NC-Congress, many candidates are in the contest, including from the PDP and the BSP. Nowshera, traditionally a Congress bastion, the grand old party won the seat eight consecutive terms from 1962 to 2002. In 2008, NC wrested the constituency for the first time, followed by BJP in the next polls. It is one of the coveted seats for the BJP, since it was for the first time the saffron party secured victory in the seat. In the polls, Raina secured victory with 37,374 votes. He had defeated Choudhary, then contested on a BJP ticket by a margin of 9,503 votes.

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In 2015, during his term as legislator, he caught under two controversies: one, for taking the oath in the name of Mata Vaishno Devi as MLA, and he, along with a few other BJP legislators, attacked another MLA, Engineer Rashid, for conducting a beef party at the state MLA hostel.