Gurez (North Kashmir): Notwithstanding the party's overall decline in Jammu and Kashmir's political spectrum which was evident in Lok Sabha polls, National Conference is trying to stand its ground in the border town of Gurez, which is going to polls in the first phase along with 14 constituencies in the state on November 25.
Even though there are four candidates in the fray, the main contest is between National Conference sitting MLA and Minister of State in Omar-led government Nazir Ahmad Khan Gurezi, who is seeking re-election for the third time, and Congress candidate Faqir Mohammad Khan. People's Democratic Party has fielded a candidate, Mohammad Ismail Lone, but the party has minimal presence in the area.
The Gurez constituency is divided into three regions - Dawar, Tilel and Bagtore - which are further divided into loosely located villages, with a total of 17,554 registered voters. In terms of the presence of the two coalition partners in the state government, who decided to part ways and fight the Assembly elections separately after an abysmal performance in the Lok Sabha polls, Dawar and Bagtore have a strong NC base while most of the voters in Tilel are Congress supporters.
The two Khans will have to fight it out to the last vote, as it will be a close contest, but Gurezi seems to have an advantage over his rival from the Congress. Majority of the people in Dawar region, which has more voters than Tilel, and Bagtore are to some extent satisfied with the development in the last 12 years. "We have witnessed a major improvement in terms of road connectivity, education and other facilities since Gurezi became the MLA from the constituency in 2002," the residents of village Koragbal, the first village of the constituency which is situated a few kilometres from Razdan Pass, said.
However, the situation in Tilel is entirely different, people allege that only those areas were developed in the constituency which backed Gurezi in 2008 Assembly elections. "The road connectivity from Dawar to Tilel is in a very bad condition, and the same is the case with the health care facility," residents of Tilel said, adding if there is a pregnancy case during the winter months when roads are buried under several feet of snow, they have to carry the would-be mother on a stretcher for over 30 km to Dawar from where she is taken to Srinagar.
The fourth candidate is an Independent, Ghulam Rasool Bhat, a resident of Bagtore area in Gurez. There is very slim chance that Bhat will get a mandate to represent the constituency in the Legislative Assembly, but it will be interesting to see if he manages to get three-digit votes in Bagtore, which has just over 2400 voters, and create problems for NC in a closely contested elections.
Despite a very high voter turnout in Gurez, which remains cut off due to snow for six months from the rest of the state, the candidate who gets the mandate to represent the constituency wins by a small margin. Gurez in 2008 Assembly election witnessed a voter turnout of 74.02 per cent. However, Khan, won the elections only by a margin of 732 votes.
(Abid Soffi is Managing Editor, 'Kashmir Pioneer'. He lives in Srinagar.)
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