Punjab resident Baldev Kumar has develop into the primary particular person from exterior Jammu and Kashmir to contest Lok Sabha polls within the Union Territory after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.
Kumar (67), a resident of the Naya Gaon space of Mohali in Punjab, filed his nomination papers from the Anantnag-Rajouri Parliamentary constituency as an unbiased candidate on Friday.
He’s amongst 25 candidates who’re within the fray from the constituency, which can go to polls on Could 7.
Kumar claimed that he determined to contest the polls on the insistence of a “large” variety of native folks whom he has “served for the last 20 years”.
“I worked for the people during the 2014 floods, I have sponsored the education of a number of students, I have facilitated patients from Kashmir when they went to Punjab for medical check-ups and kept a kothi (house) for them where they can stay when they go there for treatment,” Kumar informed PTI.
Baldev Kumar mentioned he has been requesting the administration to construct a ‘Kashmir Bhawan’ in Punjab, particularly for the sufferers, however to no avail.
“Medha Patkar (Activist) got 20 acres of land for her NGO from the Gujarat government but I have not been allotted even two acres for a Kashmir Bhawan for the patients from J&K.
“The folks have informed me that I’ve to be in energy and solely then can I construct a Kashmir Bhawan. So, I made a decision to contest the polls,” he said.
Asked if he has Jammu and Kashmir’s domicile certificate, he said, “I’ve no domicile as I’ve not stayed in a single place”.
Kumar is the first non-resident person to contest polls in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the erstwhile state on August 5, 2019.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, NCR resident Shams Khwaja contested, and lost the polls from the erstwhile Anantnag Parliamentary constituency.
He was the first-ever non-resident to contest the polls in Jammu and Kashmir. Objections were raised against his candidature, but those were overruled by election authorities in 2019.
The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is presently run by the Lt Governor-led administration after the PDP-BJP government collapsed in June 2018 with the national party pulling out of the alliance. The last assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir were held in 2014.
The Lok Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir are being conducted in five phases with voting in each of the five parliamentary constituencies of the Union Territory to be held in each phase.
An estimated 65 per cent of the total 16.23 lakh registered voters cast their ballot by 5 pm on Friday in the first phase of the elections in Udhampur.
