Amid celebratory and joyous chants of “Bharat Mata ki Jai,” BJP candidates filed their nominations for three Rajya Sabha seats in a festive and joyous atmosphere, accompanied by hundreds of supporters. Accompanied by Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, 28 BJP MLAs, and other senior leaders, the candidates marched in a procession to the Legislative Assembly complex in Srinagar to file their nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha elections from Jammu and Kashmir.
The BJP announced its candidates for three of the four vacant seats on Sunday, October 12. The party is confident of winning one seat based on its strength in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly and hopes to influence the election for the remaining seats as well. Voting will take place on October 24, 2025.
The BJP candidates in the fray are-
Satpal Sharma: Former president and minister of the Jammu and Kashmir BJP, he is considered a candidate for the party’s “safe seat,” where he has a numerical advantage due to representing Jammu.
Rakesh Mahajan: Vice President of the Jammu and Kashmir BJP unit, he represents Rajouri-Poonch.
Ali Mohammad Mir: A senior party leader from Budgam district, representing Kashmir.
Satpal Sharma (Candidate and President of the BJP Jammu and Kashmir unit): Today we are going to file our nominations. You can see how much celebration there is among the people. We hope we will win all three seats. Our issue will be our slogan: Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. Although after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, there has been a lot of development, if there are any shortcomings, we will fill them. Those demanding statehood should tell us what they have done in their one-year tenure. As for statehood, the Prime Minister has promised it, and his words are trusted by the whole world.
These four seats fell vacant in February 2021 after the terms of PDP MPs Mir Mohammad Fayaz and Nazir Ahmed Laway, BJP MP Shamsher Singh, and Congress MP Ghulam Nabi Azad ended.
The 90-member Jammu and Kashmir Assembly has 28 BJP MLAs. With this, the BJP is certain to win at least one seat. The party’s decision to contest three seats will make the election more competitive.
The ruling National Conference (NC) and its ally, the Congress, have also announced their candidates for the four seats.
On October 10, the NC announced the names of its three candidates: Choudhary Muhammad Ramzan, Shammi Oberoi, and Sajjad Ahmed Kitchloo. They are numerically ahead and likely to win all three seats easily.
However, the Congress party has refused to contest, stating that the fourth seat offered to them is “unsafe” and accusing the National Conference of not offering them a safer option. This has created uncertainty about the anti-BJP vote for the fourth seat.
