Former CMs Omar, Mehbooba face brutal loss; accept defeat much before announcement of results

Srinagar : As the vote counting started on Tuesday morning, the candidates, who emerged victorious from three Kashmir Lok Sabha seats never bagged behind their rivals, but continued to lead till the last round of the counting.
In the 20 rounds of vote counting, the twin winning candidates from National Conference (NC) and an independent candidate and jailed leader Engineer Abdul Rasheed Sheikh took lead in all the rounds held during the vote counting today.
Reports said the three new parliamentarians didn’t give any room to their rivals to take a lead or even get closer to them, which indicates a one-sided contest in all the three Lok Sabha seats of Kashmir. The three seats of Kashmir include Srinagar Parliamentary Constituency, Baramulla Parliamentary Constituency and Anantnag-Rajouri Parliamentary Constituency. It is however notable to mention that two of the candidates in the race from separate constituencies were the former chief ministers of erstwhile J&K state including National Conference (NC) Vice President and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti. The duo faced a ruthless defeat in the recently concluded polls for which the results were declared Tuesday. Moreover, both the former chief ministers accepted their defeat well before the final results were out.
The former chief ministers took to microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter) and congratulated the candidates against whom they faced defeat. Omar Abdullah was the first to write a post wherein he accepted the defeat much before the final results were out. In a post, Omar said, “I think it’s time to accept the inevitable. Congratulations to Engineer Rashid for his victory in North Kashmir. I don’t believe his victory will hasten his release from prison nor will the people of North Kashmir get the representation they have a right to but the voters have spoken and in a democracy that’s all that matters.” Mehbooba also said that she respects the verdict of the people and thanked the people for their support. “Respecting the verdict of the people I thank my PDP workers & leaders for their hard work & support despite all the odds. My deepest gratitude to the people who voted for me. Winning & losing is part of the game and won’t deter us from our path. Congratulations to Mian sahab for his victory,” she wrote on X.