PDP's Mir Mohammad Fayaz Wins Kupwara Seat
In the high-stakes battle, PDP leader Mir Mohammad Fayaz won the seat from Kupwara Assembly constituency. He defeated National Conference (NC) leader Nasir Aslam Wani by a margin of 9,797 votes. People’s Conference chief Sajjad Lone who has also contested from the seat relegated to third position.
After contesting unsuccessfully from Baramulla Constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Fayaz has put his best fight and won the assembly seat. Interestingly, he faced his former party chief Lone in the electoral battlefield as well.
Fayaz rejoined the PDP in March this year. He 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.
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.
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. Lone’s decision to contest from Kupwara was seen as a courageous act by the political analysts since parts of the assembly segments of Lolab, Handwara, and Kupwara were not viewed as a safe bet for his party.
