Key Points
As they chose to vote for mainstream parties, 28 former militants and separatists, including 10 candidates backed by the Jamaat-e-Islami and others by the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP), bit the dust...
Lok Sabha MP and terror-funding accused Engineer Rashids AIP fielded a total 35 candidates..
While former militants and separatists have sporadically contested elections in J&K in the past, what distinguished the polls this time is not only how many of them contested but also that many contested as a blocsuch as the candidates backed by Jamaat or under the banner of the AIP...
During campaigning several political parties and leaders, including former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, had questioned the entry of Jamaat-backed candidates..
Commenting on the impact of campaigning by the Independents, political commentator Ahmed Ali Fayyaz had earlier told ThePrint, For an average Kashmiri, that such a huge number of separatists or Jamaat-backed candidates are contesting shows these separatists are permitted to contest the election, with the calculation that they will cut away votes from traditional political parties...
