Jammu & Kashmir National Conference won the most seats in Jammu and Kashmir's first election as a union territory, but not enough to govern alone.

It won 42 of the 90 seats on offer.

That left it short of the 46-seat majority mark.

The Bharatiya Janata Party finished second with 29 seats.

JKN took 23.4% of the vote to the BJP's 25.6%, a closer race in votes than in seats.

It governed instead through the INDIA alliance — a group of parties that team up to fight an election together, and share power afterward if they win enough seats between them — which cleared the majority mark with 49 seats.

Parliament's Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, assented to on 9 August 2019, ended the region's special status and made it a union territory from 31 October 2019. A Delimitation Commission report on 5 May 2022 redrew the assembly to 90 seats, adding Scheduled Tribe reservation for the first time.¹

The Election Commission announced that voting for the 90-seat assembly would be held in three phases, on 18 September, 25 September and 1 October, with results counted on 8 October — the territory's first assembly election in a decade.²

The National Conference and Indian National Congress, contesting together as the INDIA bloc, agreed a seat-sharing formula giving the National Conference 51 of the 90 seats and Congress 32, with one seat each for the CPI(M) and JKNPP, and a friendly contest on five seats.³

Omar Abdullah, the National Conference's vice-president and a former Chief Minister, filed nomination papers from Ganderbal, his family's traditional seat, on 4 September, then filed a second nomination from Budgam the following day, contesting two constituencies.⁴

Union Home Minister Amit Shah released the BJP's manifesto, declaring that Article 370 'is history and will never return' and promising to end terrorism and separatism in the territory.⁵

This was the first election held after Jammu and Kashmir's delimitation — the official redrawing of constituency boundaries, which happens every so often as India's population shifts — following a change in the territory's own status a few years earlier.

The assembly grew from 87 seats to 90.

The JKN had held 15 seats going into the election; it left with 42.

Turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — slipped -1.5 pp from the previous election.

The closest race was Tral, Jammu & Kashmir, decided by a margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — of 460 votes.

Habbakadal, Jammu & Kashmir was the most one-sided contest, won by 49.6% of the vote.

Inderwal, Jammu & Kashmir recorded the highest turnout of any seat, at 83.9%.

R. S. Pura- Jammu South, Jammu & Kashmir was the largest constituency by registered voters, with 1,31,731 names on its rolls.

Baramulla, Jammu & Kashmir drew the most candidates of any seat, 25 in all.

NOTA — None of the Above, a ballot option letting voters formally reject every candidate on offer — drew 84,397 votes statewide, 1.5% of the total.

This was the union territory's first assembly election in a decade.²

Jammu and Kashmir's special status had ended in 2019, when it was reorganised as a union territory, and its assembly was redrawn to 90 seats by a Delimitation Commission report in 2022.¹

The delimitation also created Scheduled Tribe reservation in the assembly for the first time.¹