After leaving no stone unturned on ground zero former Chief Minister and National Conference Vice President Omar Abdullah Sunday led a mega ‘Shikara rally’ on Dal Lake to woo voters ahead of the second round of polling across 26 Assembly segments on September 25. The Election Commission of India has also made special arrangements for a floating booth to allow the Dal dwellers to cast their votes without facing the ordeal of moving out of their floating houseboats.

In the second round, two arch rivals National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party are pitted against each other while the entry of independent and Awami Ittehad party candidates in the fray has made the contest more interesting and competitive on many Assembly segments of the central Kashmir districts of Srinagar, Ganderbal and Budgam.

Omar himself is facing a tough challenge in the family bastion of the Ganderbal Assembly segment. His grandfather Sheikh Mohd Abdullah and Dr Farooq Abdullah represented the seat. Omar tasted humiliating defeat at the hands of a PDP candidate in the 2002 Assembly polls. He later won the 2008 Assembly polls from Ganderbal but decided to move out to Beerwah in Budgam district in the 2014 Assembly polls.

This time Omar is being challenged by the PDP nominee Bashir Mir.

Mir used to contest from the neighboring Kangan constituency but he was shifted from there after the seat was reserved for a Scheduled Tribe candidate.

Former NC leader Ishfaq Jabbar, who is also in the fray as an Independent, is expected to dent Omar Abdullah’s poll prospects.

Last-minute entry of jailed cleric Sarjan Wagay, popularly known as Sarjan Barkati, and Sheikh Ashiq, the candidate of Baramulla MP Engineer Rashid’s Awami Ittehad Party, in the fray has turned the poll battle more interesting.

Other prominent candidates in the fray in the second round of polling include Pradesh Congress Committee chief Tariq Hamid Karra, Jammu and Kashmir BJP president Ravinder Raina from Nowshera, Pahari leaders including Mushtaq Ahmed Shah Bukhari, and Murtaza Khan from the Pir Panjal region.