Rajouri, Sep 19: A straight contest between a political heavyweight from the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and his nephew from the National Conference (NC) is creating an aggressive political atmosphere in the Budhal assembly constituency of Rajouri district in the Pir Panjal region. The people are expecting a tight contest from this seat and see it as the most interesting one which will keep every single voter on their toes till the declaration of results. Budhal assembly constituency was chalked out in the recent delimitation exercise of J&K with its areas of Kotranka and Budhal having been taken from earlier Darhal assembly constituency, while the Khawas tehsil area has been merged from Kalakote constituency.
With 95,072 electors including 50,295 males, 44,761 females, and a transgender voter, the authorities are going to establish 146 polling stations in the constituency of which 132 polling stations are critical. The most important aspect of this assembly constituency is the contest between the BJP candidate with his nephew from NC. Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali, a former minister, is contesting on the mandate of the BJP while NC has fielded Javed Iqbal Choudhary under the NC-Congress alliance.
Zulfkar is the son of late Chowdhary Muhammad Hussain who remained MLA from the Darhal assembly constituency multiple times besides serving as a minister in the J&K government. Zulfkar contested the 2002 assembly polls from the Darhal constituency as an independent candidate and lost while h.