J&K polls: NC leaders Abdul Rahim Rather, Ali Mohammad Sagar elected for record 7th time

Srinagar, Oct 8 (PTI) National Conference (NC) leaders Abdul Rahim Rather and Ali Mohammad Sagar were elected for a record seventh term on Tuesday in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections.

Rather, the former finance minister of the erstwhile state of J-K, has represented central Kashmir’s Chrar-i-Shareef for six terms before this since 1977.

He was elected to the assembly in 1983, 1987, 1996, 2002 and 2008 elections. In 2014 polls, he lost to PDP’s Ghulam Nabi Lone.

However, Rather defeated Lone by a margin of over 11,000 votes on Tuesday.

Sagar, the general secretary of the NC, also won the assembly election for the seventh time.

He was first elected to the assembly from Batamaloo seat here in 1983. He regained the seat in 1987. Later, Sagar shifted to Khanyar and won the polls from there in 1996. Since then, he has never lost an election from the seat. In fact, the NC general secretary has never lost an assembly election.

Sagar won the Khanyar seat defeating fromer deputy Mayor of Srinagar Sheikh Imran who contested the polls as an independent candidate by a margin of 9,912 votes.

Another politician who could have achieved the feat was Hakeem Mohammad Yaseen who has represented Khansahib seat, in Budgam district, six times.

However, he could not win the seventh time and was defeated by NC’s Saif ud din Bhat by a margin of 11,614 votes.

NC’s Mubarak Gul is another politician who has won his seat several times. Gul won the election from Eidgah here for the sixth time, while CPI(M)’s M Y Tarigami wrested the Kulgam constituency for the fifth time.