Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Election 2024 | AAP registers first win in polls as Mehraj Malik bags Doda seat, draws blank in Haryana

Malik, a District Development Council (DDC) member, polled 23,228 votes against BJP's Gajay Singh Rana's 18,690 votes.

New Delhi: AAP opened its account in Jammu and Kashmir – the fifth state where the party now has an MLA – winning Doda constituency even as it drew a blank in Haryana where its chief Arvind Kejriwal, the son of the soil, held a series of roadshows.

It grabbed 2.49 lakh or 1.79% votes polled from 88 seats it contested in Haryana while it managed 29,733 or 0.52% votes in Jammu and Kashmir contesting seven seats.

The major chunk of AAP votes came from Doda – 23,228 votes – from where Mehraj Malik wrested the seat from the BJP, which won in the previous Assembly election in 2014. In four seats, its votes were less were between 500 and 850 while two others had 1,224 and 2,827 votes.

Jammu and Kashmir will be the fifth state where the AAP now has an MLA after Delhi, Punjab, Gujarat and Goa.

Kejriwal described Malik as the “AAP’s star of the day” and shared a video of his interaction with the winner. Kejriwal responded to Malik’s invite and said he would be part of a meeting in Kashmir on Thursday. “You are an encouraging figure. We now want change in Kashmir,” Malik told Kejriwal.

In Haryana where AAP failed to enter into an alliance with Congress, the party lost deposit in almost all the seats it contested. Kejriwal held a series of roadshows after he got bail from the Supreme Court in Delhi liquor case but it did not help the party in winning a seat.

AAP had projected Kejriwal as the son of the soil as he hailed from the state and promised to bring good governance practices of Delhi to Haryana.

In the Lok Sabha polls, AAP had contested the Kurukshetra seat in alliance with Congress and came second behind the BJP candidate.

There were intense negotiations between the AAP and the Congress for an alliance but both sides did not budge on the number of seats they should contest. AAP demanded ten seats but Congress was willing to give a maximum of seven seats, resulting in a deadlock that was not broken

Haryana Assembly poll 2024 results| Check constituency results here

J&K Assembly poll 2024 results| Check constituency results here

Assembly Elections 2024 | In the first assembly polls since the Lok Sabha elections, Narendra Modi and the BJP face a rejuvenated and vindicated Opposition in the Haryana assembly polls. Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir is voting after almost a decade and it remains to be seen how the abrogation of Article 370 has impacted the political landscape of the Valley. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.

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