The Budgam assembly constituency is going to the polls on November 11, with counting scheduled for November 14.
This time, candidates are contesting on issues such as development, allegiance to Shia factions, and division of votes among Sunnis.
There are 17 candidates in the poll fray, with the main contest between NC’s Aga Syed Mehmood, PDP’s Aga Muntazir Mehdi, Awami Ittehad Party’s (AIP) Nazir Ahmad Khan, and independent candidate Muntazir Mohi-ud-Din.
The Budgam assembly constituency, formerly held by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, is going to the polls on November 11. This by-poll, necessitated by Abdullah's stepping down to retain his Ganderbal seat, is a high-stakes contest in which issues such as development, Shia infighting, and Sunni vote division have arisen. This by-poll will also be a litmus test for Abdullah’s National Conference (NC), which is just over a year into its term.
Counting of votes will take place in the constituency on November 14. In all, seventeen candidates are in the electoral fray. The main contest is slated between the NC’s Aga Syed Mehmood, the PDP’s Aga Muntazir Mehdi, the Awami Iteehad Party’s (AIP) Nazir Ahmad Khan, and independent candidate Muntazir Mohi-ud-Din. Campaigning has intensified in the constituency, with leaders organising public rallies and indoor meetings on a daily basis. In the constituency, PDP’s young leader Aga Muntazir is pitted against his granduncle, Aga Mehmood, while former DDC chairman Nazir and trade union leader turned politician, Muntazir, will make the contest keener.
Aga Syed Mehmood
A resident of Shariat Abad Budgam, 69-year-old NC candidate Aga Syed Mehmood, is an influential Shia leader and a former minister. He was fielded as a candidate by the National Conference (NC) from the Pattan assembly segment in 1987, from which he served as MLA for only three years before the militancy erupted in Jammu and Kashmir.
Mehmood had won the election against the Muslim United Front (MUF) candidate, several of whose candidates, however, joined militant or separatist ranks after losing the 1987 elections.
In 1996, elections were held again in Jammu and Kashmir following the revocation of the Presidential rule. Mehmood contested from the Beerwah assembly segment and won. From Beerwah, he remained an MLA for six years. During his election rallies, Aga Mehmood has been urging people to vote for him, reiterating that the polls were significant and that “all eyes were on the outcome of elections.”
While Mehmood is contesting against his grandnephew and PDP’s candidate, Aga Muntazir, his other grandnephew, Aga Ruhulla, who is a current MP from Srinagar, has said that he will not campaign for him after accusing Chief Minister Omar Abdullah of failing to deliver on political promises, including the restoration of Article 370. Mehmood says that he will contest the polls on the pledge of undertaking development in the area.
Muntazir Mohi-ud-Din
Muntazir is running as an independent after differences with Apni Party, which now fields Mukhtar Ahmad Dar. He claims he was forced to withdraw his 2024 candidacy against Omar. Apni Party expelled him for acting against party interests in choosing to run independently. He joined AP after the revocation of Article 370.
A trade union leader, Muntazir, became a member of the PDP and in 2014 lost the polls on the party ticket from Budgam against Aga Ruhulla by a slim margin of votes, with Ruhulla receiving 30,059 votes against Muntazir's 27,272. Before the NC announced Aga Mehmood's candidature for the seat, a Sunni delegation had met the party’s top leadership, seeking that a Sunni candidate be fielded from the area. Muntazir claims he was forced to withdraw his candidacy last year in favour of CM Omar, leading him to run as an independent now. He believes that his 2014 vote share and current public support will bring victory.
Aga Muntazir Mehdi
PDP leader Aga Muntazir, 32, is contesting the elections for the second time from the seat. In the 2014 polls, he lost to Omar Abdullah by a heavy margin. While Omar received 35,804 votes, Aga Muntazir Mehdi polled 17,445 votes. Son of Shia cleric and Hurriyat leader Aga Syed Hassan, Aga Muntazir Mehdi, 32, entered politics after separatists pledged allegiance to the Indian constitution post-Article 370 revocation.
District President of the BJP, Hakeem Ruhulla Gazi, states that Muntazir’s candidature was largely a fight within families and two factions of Shia Muslims. “Instead of a real fight, the NC and PDP have made it a contest between the families. There is also a tussle going on between the families of the two candidates over the control of the religious sites by two separate factions of Shias.”
He adds: “The two families claim to be the sole representatives of Shias and even put out a social media post objecting to our candidate Aga Mohsin using Aga as part of his name. Aga is an honorific for Mister in Iran; even the Sunnis are referred to as Aga in the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi could even be called Aga Modi in Iran.”
Nazir Ahmad Kha
AIP candidate Nazir Ahmad Khan, a former District Development Council chairman, does not hail from Budgam. He contested the 2024 Beerwah elections—won by Shafi Ahmad Wani, who got 20,118 votes to Khan’s 15,957. Son of ex-Minister and PDP leader Sarfraz Khan, Nazir lost to Omar in 2014 by a narrow margin—Omar got 23,692, Nazir 22,790.
Nazir says that he is contesting the polls based on the work he did as a DDC chairman to ensure development in the constituency. “Budgam is a district headquarters, but it lags in development. There is no separate maternity health facility here, nor a sports stadium where children can play. As DDC chairman, I ensured the improvement in the facilities of the Railway Station and got the work started on a district-level health facility, here,” he says.
Earlier, Nazir had been associated with the PDP for a long time and had joined the party, along with his father, after it was founded in Kashmir in 1999. However, he says that he was forced to contest the DDC election as an independent candidate after he was informed that the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), which was an amalgam of different parties, including NC and PDP, that was formed to oppose the revocation of Article 370, had withdrawn his candidature. Before last year’s elections, however, he joined AIP to contest polls from Beerwah.
"I contested as an independent candidate after I was told within hours of being declared as a DDC candidate on the PAGD ticket to withdraw my name,” he says.
