Jammu and Kashmir elections: BJP withdraws 1st list of candidates hours after release.

In the now-withdrawn list, the party had dropped senior leaders including former deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh, Sat Paul Sharma and Priya Sethi. Hours after its release, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday withdrew its first list of 44 candidates for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls. The party had named 37 candidates from the Jammu region and seven from the Kashmir Valley, including two Kashmiri Pandits, Veer Saraf and Ashok Bhat, nominated from the Shangus and Habbakadal constituencies, respectively. Sources said the list was withdrawn because only the names from the first phase were meant to be released, but the party mistakenly included candidates for the other two phases as well. In the now-withdrawn list, the party had dropped senior leaders, including former deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh and former ministers Sat Paul Sharma, Priya Sethi and Sham Lal Choudhary. The list included senior leaders who had left parties like the National Conference (NC), Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Congress, and Panthers Party. Former minister Mushtaq Bukhari, who joined the party after leaving the National Conference was fielded from the Surankote constituency. Murtaza Khan, previously associated with the PDP and a former lawmaker in the upper house was fielded from Mendhar. Former Congress minister Sham Lal Sharma was selected for the Jammu North constituency, while former NC leader Devender Singh Rana, brother of Union minister Dr. Jitender Singh was set to contest from the Nagrota constituency. Polling for the first phase will be held on September 18, the second phase on September 25, and the final phase on October 1. Jammu and Kashmir has 87.09 lakh eligible electorates including 44.46 male, 42.62 female and 3.71 lakh first time voters. Average voters per polling station is 735, according to the Election Commission of India. The list also included several new faces, such as Sunil Bhardwaj from Ramnagar, Jeevan Lal from Bani, and Satish Sharma from Billawar, a seat previously won by former deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh in 2014.