Putting aside all speculations and rumours, the BJP on Saturday repeated both the sitting Lok Sabha members of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir for the coming Parliamentary elections.
National general secretary of the party Vinod Tawde announced the names of both the sitting Lok Sabha members namely Dr. Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma.
Dr. Jitendra Singh is the Minister of State (MoS) in the Prime Minister's Office and represents the Udhampur-Kathua-Doda Parliamentary constituency.
Jugal Kishore Sharma is BJP's Lok Sabha member from the Jammu-Reasi Lok Sabha constituency. Before the delimitation exercise of 2023, this constituency was called as Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat.
Spead in four districts of Jammu province, the Udhampur-Kathua-Doda Parliamentary constituency comprised 18 eighteen assembly constituencies of these districts.
Eighteen assembly constituencies included Inderwal, Kishtwar, Padder-Nagseni, Bhadarwah, Doda, Doda West, Ramban, Banihal, Udhampur West, Udhampur East, Chenani, Ramnagar, Bani, Billawar, Basohli, Jasrota, Kathua and Hiranagar.
The Jammu-Reasi Parliamentary constituency spreads over three districts namely Samba, Jammu, and Reasi, and comprises 18 assembly segments of these three districts.
BJP has won these seats in two successive Lok Sabha elections
For the last successive elections, the BJP has won these two Lok Sabha seats of Jammu province. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Dr. Jitendra Singh emerged as a "giant killer" when he defeated the then-Congress stalwart Ghulam Nabi Azad.
In the 2019 elections, Singh's victory margin was 3.57 lakh votes which was about six times higher than the 2014 general election.
In the 2019 elections, he defeated Vikramaditya Singh, the son of former Sadar-e-Riyasat of Jammu and Kashmir, Dr Karan Singh in Udhampur, a Parliamentary seat that Karan Singh had represented thrice.
Jugal Kishore Sharma had secured 8,58,066 votes against Congress candidate Raman Bhalla's 5,51,187, recording a victory margin of 3,02,875.
Congress still undecided over candidates for these two seats
While the BJP has taken the lead by announcing candidates for two seats in Jammu province, Congress, which is the main contender in these segments, has yet not shortlisted potential candidates to take on the Saffron Party.
Congress has constituted panels of potential candidates but party leadership has failed to shortlist those who wanted to contest elections seriously.
A month back, Congress leadership constituted two panels of 24 candidates for these two seats but to date party has not shortlisted among these aspirants.
