Battle for Udhampur-Doda Seat: BJP’s Jitendra Singh faces tough challenge from Congress’s Lal Singh in three-way contest

Srinagar, April 03: Voting for the first phase on Udhampur-Doda seat will be held on April 19 and more than 10 candidates are in the fray. The main contest is between BJP candidate Jitendra Singh and Congress candidate Lal Singh.
Lal Singh returned to Congress only last month after 10 years. He left Congress and joined the BJP before the 2014 parliamentary elections and played a notable role in the victory of BJP candidate Dr Jitendra Singh.
Similarly, the entry of former minister G M Saroori from the Democratic Azad Party (DPAP) has added another dimension to the race, making it a three-way contest. Despite there being 12 candidates in total, the main battle is expected to be between the BJP and Congress candidates.
BJP’s Dr Jitendra Singh secured victory in the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat in 2019 with a significant margin, defeating Congress candidate Vikramaditya Singh by over 3,50,000 votes. Singh faces a challenging task ahead as he seeks to replicate his impressive performance from the last election, riding the wave of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity in 2019.
In the previous polls, he secured a commanding victory with 7.24 lakh votes, commanding a substantial 61.38% vote share, while the Congress runner-up trailed with 3.67 lakh votes.
Dr Jitendra gets a lot of support from Hindu voters, especially after rallies for the Ram Temple. However, as per analysis, people in Kathua and Udhampur are upset with the BJP’s decisions, like the termination of the Roshni Act, which hurt farmers in the region.
Even people also worried about land and jobs after Article 370 was removed. In most of his speeches, Dr. Singh talks about this a lot, saying it brought development and peace, and sidelined what he calls the “exploitative three families” of Gandhis, Abdullahs, and Muftis.
Lal Singh, on the other hand, received only a fraction of the votes. In the previous election in 2014, Jitendra Singh defeated Ghulam Nabi Azad by a substantial margin and later joined the Modi Government as a Minister of State.
Lal Singh, who has previously won the Udhampur seat twice as a Congress candidate, later switched to the BJP but resigned following controversy over his involvement in a rally related to a sensitive case.
Singh, a Dogra Rajput who founded the Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan Party (DSSP) in 2018 to protect Jammu’s indigenous identity, has been a two-time Member of Parliament (MP) from Udhampur on Congress tickets in the past. Last year, he was arrested by the ED in connection with a money laundering case but was subsequently released on bail.
He advocates for the restoration of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, especially job and land security, in the form of Article 371.
In 2004, Lal Singh won the Udhampur seat in the Lok Sabha elections by defeating the union minister and BJP veteran Prof Chaman Lal Gupta. Then, in 2014, he became an MLA as a BJP candidate after leaving the Congress and joining the BJP. Later, he became a cabinet minister in the PDP-BJP coalition government.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Singh ran for both Jammu and Udhampur seats but lost in both. He remained a minister in the PDP-BJP government until it fell apart in June 2018 because the BJP withdrew from the coalition, citing security concerns in the region.
Saroori, a former minister and vice chairman of DPAP, brings his own political history to the mix, having won his assembly constituency thrice in the past. He was previously associated with the Congress but joined Azad’s party after Azad parted ways with the national party.
In his recent speech, Saroori praised DPAP Chairman Ghulam Nabi Azad for his strong stand against removing Article 370, which many people supported. He called Azad a big leader who cares about public problems, showing that DPAP always puts people’s needs first.
Describing Saroori as the epitome of leadership and dedication, Azad hailed him as the ‘right choice’ to represent the aspirations of the people in the Udhampur-Doda region.
The upcoming election in the Udhampur seat, scheduled for April 19, is expected to be closely watched. With over 16 lakh registered voters and diverse demographics, including a significant number of Persons with Disabilities and elderly voters, the outcome will be crucial for both major contenders.
The Udhampur seat comprises 16 Assembly segments spread across Kishtwar, Doda, Udhampur, and Kathua districts. Eight of these segments, located in Kishtwar and Doda, have a significant Muslim population, while the remaining eight in Udhampur and Kathua are predominantly Hindu.
Major regional parties like the National Conference (NC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) are not contesting in the Udhampur seat. This move aims to consolidate Muslim and secular votes in favour of the Congress candidate.