After fighting a tough battle in the hilly districts of Doda and Kishtwar, the political parties have shifted their battleground to the frontier district of Poonch, Reasi and Udhampur in Jammu region for the second phase of polling on December 2.
A total number of 113 candidates are in the fray on these 9 Assembly seats. Three sitting members of the Congress, two each from Panthers party and National Conference and one each from PDP and BJP are defending their turf.
After record voter turn out of over 71 per cent in Phase 1 of Assembly polls, all eyes are now set on the voters in the frontier district of Poonch where alliance partners would be locking horns with each other to prevent PDP from taking advantage of division of votes between them.
After Congress lost Jammu-Poonch lok Sabha seat it accused National Conference of working against the interests of the alliance candidate by not transferring their traditional votes. Congress lost the seat by a huge margin of over 2.6 lakh votes.To retain its upper hand, the Congress party even brought vice president Rahul Gandhi to campaign for the party candidates in the region.
Feeling the poll heat Rahul went on to tarnish the image of his old friend Omar Abdullah and even dubbed his Government as ‘lethargic’ which failed on all fronts by not fulfilling peoples aspirations.
People Democratic Party (PDP) which is working hard in the region for a long time is aiming to improve its tally by garnering majority votes on at least two of the three seats in Poonch district. PDP won Mendhar Asembly seat in 2008. During recent lok Sabha polls PDP candidate garnered majority votes from Surankote and Poonch Assembly segment while Congress secured majority votes in Mendhar.
On the other hand, BJP is in a commanding position in Udhampur and Reasi districts and is hoping to replicate their lok Sabha performance.
Riding high on the crest of the Modi-wave in Reasi and Udhampur districts BJP had garnered majority votes on four Assembly segments of Reasi, Chenani, Udhampur and Ramnagar. BJP may face some trouble on two Assembly seats of Reasi and Udhampur as dissident candidates, expelled by the party are contesting against the party nominees.
To woo the electorate, BJP has deployed star campaigners Navjot Singh Sidhu and Shah Nawaz Hussain to do carpet bombing in the area. Narendra Modi is also expected to address one rally each in Poonch and Udhampur on November 28 to add punch to the aggressive door to door campaign by BJP workers, imported from outside the state to assist local cadre.
Panthers party which won two Assembly seats of Udhampur and Ramnagar in 2008 Assembly polls are fighting a tough battle to retain their constituencies. During lok Sabha their party supermo Bhim Singh failed to garner majority votes from these two Assembly segments.