Going for broke in Udhampur, the big border constituency in J&K
Kanta Andotra knows that she has a tough task. The former MLA is canvassing for votes from village to village on behalf of her husband, Choudhary Lal Singh, a twotime MP from Udhampur.
Mr. Choudhary, the Congress candidate, has been fielded against the BJP’s Jitendra Singh, who won the previous Lok Sabha elections with a huge margin.
During the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Mr. Choudhary, who had a brief stint with the BJP and was a Minister in the then BJPPeople’s Democratic Party (PDP) government, had helped Mr. Singh in his campaign. The so far onesided contest has turned interesting with the entry of Mr. Choudhary.
“Do you want a candidate to whom you can reach through a call even in the dead of the night or someone who never steps foot in the area? Do you want a local representative or an outsider? Our issues are raasta and naali [road and drainage], there are no jobs for the youth, pension for widows and Anganwadi workers have stopped,” Ms. Andotra says to a group at Kootah in Kathua.
Udhampur goes to the polls on April 19 and, geographically, is one of the largest Lok Sabha constituencies in the country. It comprises Doda, Ramban, Kathua, Kishtwar and Udhampur districts, and has a 60% Hindu and 40% Muslim population.
After Mr. Choudhary quit the BJP to protest the government’s decision to revoke Article 370 in J&K, the CBI registered a case of land grab against an educational trust run by his family. In 2019, he floated his own party and finished fourth in the Lok Sabha election. He was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in November 2023 in a money laundering case.
“At that time, he did not have the support of the Congress. It was a new party and we did not have enough resources. Now, we have the organisational backing,” Ms. Andotra said.
‘Busy MP’
Some local people say that Mr. Singh had been an “absent MP.” Others say that his job in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) keeps him busy.
Asha Devi, alias Baby, a BJP worker, has been campaigning for Mr. Singh in villages in Kathua and Hiranagar, which share a border with Pakistan. “How can you expect a person who holds such a key position in the PMO to be available here all the time? While being in Delhi, he ensures that he gets good infrastructure projects for us. Modiji is an incarnation of God, he made the Ram Mandir,” Ms. Baby says.
“The Ram Mandir was made with our money, all of us contributed. But there is no need to seek votes in Ram’s name. Our issue is unemployment, young men do not have jobs. Another big issue is alcohol and drugs,” Romesh Chandra, a former head of Swal village, says.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are all set to campaign for Mr. Singh this week. “If Mr. Singh was winning smoothly, what was the need for Yogiji and Modiji to campaign here?” a Congress worker asked.
The Democratic Progressive Azad Party of Ghulam Nabi Azad has also fielded a candidate, G.M Saroori. “He never criticises the BJP. We will not vote for him, he is the Bteam of the BJP. The BJP gave tribal reservation to pahadis in J&K. They snatched our rights,” Zakir Hussain, a Gujjar from Kootah, said.