Stage set for tomorrow’s polling in high profile Udhampur LS seat amid high security
Jammu and Kashmir has five Lok Sabha constituencies and each one will go to polls in separate phases because of security reasons.
Congress member of Parliament and leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad was sent back to Delhi on Thursday hours after he was stopped at the Srinagar airport earlier in the day.
Azad was accompanied by Jammu and Kashmir Congress chief Ghulam Ahmed Mir when they were stopped at the airport.
Ghulam Nabi Azad had left for Srinagar to hold a meeting with Congress leaders at the Pradesh Congress Committee office in Srinagar.
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Earlier, Azad while commenting on National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval’s visit to the Valley on Wednesday, had said that “anyone can be brought along with money”.
“Paise dekar aap kisiko bhi saath le sakte ho,” Azad scoffed while speaking to reporters before flying to Srinagar.
NSA Ajit Doval was on Wednesday spotted chatting around and having lunch with the local residents of Shopian in Kashmir in what is being touted as the Centre’s attempt to show that normalcy was slowly returning to the Valley.
The move came after the government revoked Article 370 of the Constitution that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir. According to the sources, Doval was in Kashmir to assess the security situation in the state as it was placed under curfew in the wake of the government’s announcement.
Doval was spotted sitting and interacting with a handful of local people outside shuttered down shops in an empty market place in South Kashmir’s Shopian.
Earlier, the NSA met Governor Satya Pal Malik at the Raj Bhavan in Srinagar. He also addressed groups of Jammu and Kashmir Police, Central Reserve Police Force and the Indian Army personnel to boost their morale in the state’s altered scenario.
On Tuesday, the Parliament had okayed a resolution to scrap Article 370 and passed a bill to split the state into two Union Territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
Meanwhile, political leaders of J-K including former chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah are still under house arrest since early Monday morning.
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