The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is set to win the by-election in central Kashmir’s Budgam constituency, which has been represented by the National Conference (NC) since 1977 and last elected Chief Minister Omar Adbulllah as its representative in the 2024 Assembly elections.
A bypoll was necessitated in the constituency after Omar Abdullah, who won two seats in 2024, chose to keep the family bastion of Ganderbal and relinquish Budgam.
On Friday, PDP’s Aga Muntazir Mehdi led his nearest rival, Aga Syed Mahmood of the NC, by 4,500 votes after 13 rounds of counting. In last September’s election, Muntazir had lost to Adbullah by over 18,000 votes. However, while Abdullah vacated the seat, the PDP candidate kept up his presence on the ground.
The BJP also fielded an Aga, though not from the same family as the other two candidates, and he is currently in seventh position. The BJP’s Aga Syed Mohsin got just over 2,000 after 13 rounds.
For the PDP, which only has three seats in the 90-member House, the addition of Budgam will provide the party cadre with a morale boost. The NC, on the contrary, had a rare public display of fissures between party leadership and its current Srinagar MP, Aga Ruhullah Mehdi, a key figure in Budgam. Ruhullah Mehdi has previously represented the Budgam constituency in the J&K Assembly and also holds sway over the constituency’s significant Shia population.
Ruhullah represented Budgam from 2002 to 2014. In 2024, when he was elected to Parliament, Abdullah stepped in to fight Budgam as a second, safe seat. However, despite a comfortable win, the Chief Minister’s decision to give up the seat did not go down well with the voters.
Ruhullah Mehdi has publicly criticised the party leadership and the Omar Abdullah government for not living up to election promises over the past year, and refused to participate in campaigning for the bypoll. Unlike last year, when Ruhullah accompanied the party’s then-candidate Omar Abdullah across every public rally and roadshow, the Srinagar MP was completely absent this time.
Additionally, while the NC announced its party’s candidate just days before the election date, the PDP’s Muntazir had the benefit of nearly a year of working on the ground. The PDP also threw its weight behind its candidate, with party president Mehbooba Mufti campaigning in Budgam, along with PDP legislators from other areas.
In their campaigns, the PDP questioned the NC government’s performance over the last year in power despite having 50 MLAs in the House.
Abdullah sought to target the PDP, accusing it of having a track record of asking for votes against the BJP “and then joining hands with them”.
During a road show in Budgam three days before the election, Abdullah said, “All (political) forces are in the field to defeat the National Conference and Aga Mahmood in this election. And for what fault? Because we are still standing by for the promises we made while contesting the last election, which is to keep the BJP at bay.”
On Friday, as his lead over his opponents increased, Aga Muntazir said in Budgam that this is a vote for change, after many years of NC rule in the constituency, “and to take an account of the injustices of these years”.