Jammu Tawi, Sep 19: As the first phase of Assembly elections is over and the focus has shifted to two other phases, one of the most high profile seats of Jammu district, Jammu North, is going to witness clash between two leaders who have to shift to this seat because their originals seats have become reserve for Schedule Caste (ST) community.
The two Brahmins, Sham Lal Sharma, representing Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and Ajay Sadhotra, the old guard of National Conference (NC), will be head to head.
Jammu North Assembly Constituency has 111228 votes including 56952 male, 54274 female and two transgender voters eligible to vote in the third phase of Assembly elections on October 1.
After the final date of withdrawal of nomination papers, a total of 17 candidates are in the fray for Jammu North Assembly constituency which include Sham Lal Sharma, Ajay Sadhotra and other 15 candidates. Both Sham Lal Sharma and Ajay Sadhotra have been former ministers and have represented Akhnoor and Marh constituencies, respectively.
After delimitation of Assembly constituencies, Akhnoor and Marh constituencies have been reserved for ST population and both these leaders have been given mandate by their respective parties to contest from Jammu North.
After switching over to BJP from Congress party, this is the first election for Sham Lal Sharma on BJP ticket and getting mandate from Jammu North, which earlier used to be called as Raipur-Domana, is considered a safe seat for him because of his stature and the work done by him in the past. It has also remained a stronghold of BJP in the past and Sharma's stature and party support makes him the stronger candidate. One more thing which gives Sharma advantage is that he lives in the same constituency and is available to people all the time at his residence at Purkhoo-Mishriwala.
Sham Lal Sharma is also the one who coined the term Hindu Chief Minister for Jammu and Kashmir while he was in Congress party which gave people of Jammu a hope that this thing will happen here someday.
Despite being loyal to his party National Conference, this will be a new experience for Sadhotra to contest from Jammu North, from where he has never contested any election. He has his base in Marh area but as he can't contest from there, the party gave him the mandate from Jammu North. The only advantage Sadhotra is having is that he is the NC-Congress alliance candidate from this seat and Congress party is fully supporting him for this time.
The other 15 candidates are either weak or are new to this seat and in front of the two bigwigs their chances of winning or making a mark are bleak.
