3 generations of Abdullah family cast their ballot in Srinagar

Srinagar, May 13

Three generations of the Abdullah family on Monday cast their vote in Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency. NC president and former J-K chief minister Farooq Abdullah, his son Omar Abdullah and his two grandsons and first-time electors Zahir and Zamir cast their vote at the polling station at the Burn Hall School here.

“We have two first-time voters with us. It is for the first time that three generations of our family are voting together,” Omar Abdullah, also a former chief minister, said.

It is for the first time since 1998 that no member of the Abdullah family is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Srinagar. The only loss the NC suffered on this seat was in the 2014 general elections.

While the BJP, which is in power at the Centre, is not contesting any of the three Lok Sabha seats, including Srinagar, in Kashmir, the party is confident that the elections in the Valley will end the domination of the NC and the PDP in the region.

Supported by the INDIA bloc, the NC has fielded influential Shia leader and former minister Aga Ruhullah Mehdi while the PDP has named its youth unit president Waheed Para as its candidate.

Even though the Srinagar seat was expected to witness a virtually head-on contest between Mehdi and Para, Apni Party’s Mohammad Ashraf Mir and DPAP’s Amir Ahmad Bhat are also in the fray along with 20 others, including two women.

The Lok Sabha polls is also the first major election in the Kashmir region after the abrogation of the article, which granted special status to J-K.