Omar Abdullah Wins From His Home Turf, Ganderbal

NC Vice President and former chief minister Omar Abdullah wins from the Ganderbal Assembly seat. He has defeated PDP’s  Bashir Ahmad Mir by a margin of 10,574 votes.

The Abdullahs of NC considers Ganderbal as their home turf and for decades, and this election results further solidified their position in the assembly segment. The three generations of the Abdullahs – founder Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah represented the constituency during different periods.

Omar is contesting from the Ganderbal seat for the third time. Despite his initial disagreements on contesting for assembly elections considering Jammu and Kashmir’s Union Territory (UT) status, the party pressures prompted him to revise decision. In the 2002 election, when Omar contested from the constituency for the first time, he suffered defeat. Omar who was also helming as the party chief at that time, lost the seat to the PDP’s Qazi Mohammad Afzal by 2,870 votes. However, in the 2008 polls, he wrested the the same seat by defeating Afzal with a margin of 8,215 votes. Then he went on to become the youngest chief minister of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

In the 2014 elections, however, decided to give the seat to Sheikh Ishfaq Jabbar who was then a new face in the party. Jabbar secured victory by defeating PDP rival Afzal by a margin of 597 votes.

Though PDP candidate Mir contested unsuccessfully from Kangan constituency in the past two assembly elections, he has garnered significant votes. In the 2014 polls, Mir lost to NC rival Mian Altaf by a small margin of 1,432 votes. Since Kangan is now being reserved for ST candidates, the party nominated him from Ganderbal.