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Elections 2019: Mehbooba Mufti Loses J&K's Anantnag

Mufti has never lost an election since her entry into politics in 1996.

PDP president Mehbooba Mufti lost the Anantnag seat in Jammu and Kashmir in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by approximately 10,000 votes and was left at the third spot.

National Conference’s Hasnain Masoodi won the seat. Congress’ Ghulam Ahmad Mir got just 2,500 more than Mufti.

Anantnag was once a PDP stronghold and Mufti has never lost an election.

In 2014, Mufti won the seat by defeating Congress’s candidate by a margin of 12,000 votes.

Mufti had resigned as state CM in 2018 after BJP broke ties with PDP and Governor’s rule was imposed.

Anantnag saw a lot of protests against India after the civilian unrest over militant Burhan Wani’s killing in 2016 prompted a crackdown by the state. Also in Anantnag is the Pulwama assembly where the February terrorist attack took place in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.

The constituency voted in three phases due to security concerns.

During the first phase of the elections, Mufti had tweeted a video showing voters in Jammu raising anti-BJP slogans after they were allegedly “roughed up” by BSF jawans for not voting for the saffron party.

Mufti had also cautioned against the BJP’s plan to scrap Article 370, which grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir, if it came back to power for a second term.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.