J-K municipal polls: Independent candidates lead Kashmir with 178 seats

Independent candidates have dominated the municipal elections in Kashmir by winning 178 seats beating the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress contenders.

Congress has won 157 seats while BJP contenders won 100. The counting took place at Sher-i-Kashmir International Conference Centre (SKICC).

In total, there were 624 wards in Kashmir and among them, 208 saw contest while 231 wards were won by candidates uncontested and the remaining 185 remained vacant.

Out of 157 seats won by Congress, 79 seats were contested and remaining 78 were uncontested. Meanwhile, for BJP 24 seats were contested and 76 were uncontested.

The Congress and the BJP were two major sides battling for municipal authority in Jammu and Kashmir as the National Conference (NC) and the Peoples Democratic Alliance (PDP) boycotted the elections over lack of clarity in the Centre's stance on Articles 35A.

Meanwhile, in the 75-seat Jammu municipal corporation polls, the BJP won 43 seats followed by Congress (14), while Independent candidates got 18 seats.

Lauding BJP's Jammu and Kashmir wing over its win, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, "I salute the entire team of @BJP4JnK for their stupendous efforts in the local body elections. I am glad that they reached out to every section of society and explained the Party's development agenda."

In total, 52 civic bodies went to polls in four phases amid tight security arrangements in the state. A total of 3372 nominations were filed for 1145 wards.

Covering 79 municipal bodies, 27 in the Valley did not go to polls owing either to the fact that there was no candidate or only one candidate had filed nominations for a particular ward.