Ladakh

Voting begins for 5th LAHDC Kargil elections at 278 polling stations

People in a queue waiting for their turn to cast their vote during LAHDC-Kargil polls on Oct 4, 2023.

Kargil: Voting for the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) Kargil elections is underway at 278 polling stations on Wednesday. The campaigning ended on Monday with the stage set for a triangular contest in most of the 26 seats.

“Today is the polling day of LAHDC elections. The mock poll process is being conducted at polling stations. We have a total of 278 polling stations. Police arrangements have been made to carry out free and fair elections. Out of the 278 stations, 114 are hyper-sensitive and 99 are sensitive polling stations. Police deployments have been done accordingly,” said Shrikant Balasaheb Suse, Deputy Commissioner, Kargil, as per PTI.

On October 8, the counting of votes will occur for the (LAHDC)-Kargil elections, which has a total of 95,388 voters, including 46,762 women. Eligible voters will cast their votes between 8 am and 4 pm today.

The previous council, led by the National Conference’s Feroz Ahmad Khan, completed its five-year term on October 1. The new council is expected to be formed before October 11, as per the election commission’s schedule.

A total of 85 candidates are contesting for 26 out of the 30 seats in the Hill Council. The National Conference and Congress have formed a pre-poll alliance, focusing on areas where they face tough competition from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP, which had won one seat in the last election and later increased its tally to three with the addition of two PDP councillors, is fielding 17 candidates this time.

Additionally, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is competing in four seats, and there are 25 independent candidates in the fray for these elections.

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