In a first, Muslim candidate wins on BJP ticket in Jammu

New Delhi: A Muslim candidate has won on a BJP ticket in Jammu's Rajouri district - a first in decades in the state. His opponent was a Hindu and the two-time sitting legislator of the National Conference.

Abdul Gani Kohli of the BJP defeated two-time legislator of the National Conference Rashpal Singh by a margin of 6,178 votes from Kalakote Assembly seat of Rajouri district. Candidates from the Congress and the PDP occupied the third and the fourth positions.

Kohli polled 25,225 votes, compared to 19,047 votes of Singh. "I am very happy to win this election on a BJP ticket. People have voted on the development plank of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi," Kohli said.

The BJP, which had set itself a target of 50-plus seats in the assembly elections, had fielded 31 Muslim candidates including Kohli. Most of them had been contested from the Kashmir Valley.

While a majority of these candidates have lost and some are awaiting poll results, Kohli is the first BJP candidate from the Muslim community who has won from Jammu region in several decades.

In 1972, Sheikh Abdul Rehman had won the Jammu East seat on the ticket of then Bhartiya Jan Sangh.

The Kalakote assembly seat, which was carved out to give representation to the far-flung areas of the state in 1996, was bagged twice by the NC and once by the Congress.

Besides Kohli, several BJP Muslim candidates garnered sizable number of votes and two of them lost by a thin margin in Rajouri and Inderwal seats.

The BJP candidate from Muslim-majority Inderwal constituency in Kishtwar district, Tariq Hussain Keen, lost out to Congress candidate and former Minister GM Saroori by a margin of 12,370 votes.

In the Rajouri assembly seat, BJP candidate Choudhary Talib Hussain lost to Qamar Hussain of PDP by over 2,000 votes.

In Muslim-dominated Banihal constituency of Ramban district, Showkat Javed Daing of the BJP stood third.