 | « Back to article | Print this article |
It is the battle of Singhs in Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur constituency. Which Singh will be the king, that is the answer everyone awaits from one of the most keenly contested constituencies in the Jammu region.
The three Singhs are: Bhim Singh of the Panthers Party, Chowdhary Lal Singh of the Congress-National Conference (NC) coalition and Dr Nirmal Singh of the BJP.
The candidates belonging to other parties do not command any meaningful influence in the constituency, comprising five districts of Doda, Udhampur, Reasi, Kishtwar and Ramban districts with two of the districts, Doda and Kishtwar, reflecting a Muslim population pattern.
A mountainous and militancy-affected constituency, it has as an electorate of 13,62,382, which is second only to the Jammu Parliamentary constituency.
Out of the total electorate, 7,16,405 male and 6,45,977 female voters are registered for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
Chowdhary Lal Singh of Congress won the parliamentary seat in 2004 elections, when he defeated his nearest rival Prof. Chaman Lal Gupta of BJP by 47,175 votes.