Mehbooba Mufti loses Anantnag seat to NC's Justice (retd) Hasnain Masoodi

Srinagar: PDP president and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti Thursday lost the Anantnag Lok Sabha seat to National Conference's Justice (retd) Hasnain Masoodi by nearly 10,000 votes. 

Masoodi, who was fighting his maiden electoral battle, polled 40,180 votes, while Mehbooba secured 30,524 votes, officials said.

Congress's state unit president Ghulam Ahmad Mir was the runner up with 33,504 votes, they said.

They said the NC candidate secured 32.59 per cent of the total votes polled on the seat which went to polls in three phases due to security reasons.

Mir polled 26.76 per cent while Mehbooba 24.6 per cent of the votes.

Taking to Twitter, Mehbooba, who had won the Anantnag seat in 2014 election, conceded the defeat.

"I've been fortunate to get the love & affection of my people. They have every right to express their anger for my failings. Accept their verdict with humility. Congratulations to winning candidates from NC. I'm grateful to my party workers & colleagues," the PDP president tweeted.

She also congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the "historic" mandate.

"Congratulations to Narendra Modi ji for a historic mandate. Today surely belongs to BJP and it's allies. Time for Congress to get an Amit Shah," she added.

This is only second electoral defeat for Mufti since she joined politics in 1996. She had lost the 1999 Lok Sabha poll from Srinagar constituency to NC leader Omar Abdullah.