Out of four Rajya Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir, the National Conference won three and BJP one seat.

Srinagar, October 24 (IANS). National Conference (NC) won three Rajya Sabha seats and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won one seat. Elections for these seats were held on Friday. Mohammad Ramzan Choudhary, Sajjad Kitchlu and Shami Oberoi of the National Conference and Sat Sharma of the BJP won Rajya Sabha seats, Election Commission officials said. Voting for these seats took place in the Legislative Assembly complex in Srinagar on Friday. Sat Sharma is the president of Jammu and Kashmir BJP; He has 32 votes. Chaudhary Mohammad Ramzan got 58 votes. 87 MPs voted in the Rajya Sabha elections, out of which 86 MPs voted in person, while Doda MP Mehraj Malik, who is currently in custody, voted by post. Sajjad Lone of People’s Conference (PC) remained absent from the voting process. Although the NC had a clear lead on three seats, the contest for the fourth seat was crucial as the NC was expected to win this seat too with the support of 6 Congress MPs, 6 Independents, one CPI-M, one Awami Ittehad Party (AIP), and one Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Nagrota of Jammu division and two assembly seats of Budgam of the valley are vacant due to by-elections to be held on November 11. The Budgam seat fell vacant after Omar Abdullah resigned from the seat and decided to represent Ganderbal constituency in the 90-member Jammu and Kashmir Assembly. Omar won both Budgam and Ganderbal seats in the 2024 elections. Nagrota seat fell vacant after the death on 31 October 2024 of BJP MP Devendra Singh Rana, who had won from this seat in the 2024 elections. In the 2024 election, National Conference won 42, BJP 29, Congress 6, PDP 3, CPI(M) 1, PC 1, AIP 1, AAP 1 and 6 independent candidates won. The Congress later decided to support the Omar Abdullah-led National Conference government from outside, while 5 independent candidates later joined the National Conference. –IANS MS/DKP