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Springing a surprise in the J&K Assembly elections, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s Mehraj Malik bagged the Doda seat in the Jammu region, giving his party its first-ever victory in the Union Territory.
Malik defeated BJP candidate Gajay Singh Rana by 4,538 votes. The National Conference (NC)’s nominee and former minister Khalid Najib Suharwardy and Ghulam Nabi Azad-led Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP)’s candidate Abdul Majid Wani ended up at third and fourth places respectively while the Congress’s Sheikh Riaz Ahmad was pushed to the fifth spot.
The AAP top brass celebrated Malik’s victory in Delhi, with party chief Arvind Kejriwal hailing it as a “grand win against the BJP”. Praising Malik for “fighting the election very well”, Kejriwal also congratulated “the entire party for having an MLA in the fifth state” now.
On Thursday, Kejriwal would also visit Doda to hold a “thank you rally” with Malik.
This is however not the first electoral success for Malik, the 36-year-old post-graduate from Jammu University. In 2020, he had won the Doda District Development Council (DDC) election from the Kahara constituency, becoming the first elected public representative of the AAP in J&K.
Although he had then contested the DDC election as an Independent, Kejriwal had congratulated him then too.
Malik joined the AAP in 2013 and soon started making ripples as the party activist by taking up the issues of local people, such as drinking water, electricity, medical facilities, education infrastructure and absenteeism in the government offices. The AAP leadership appointed him as the co-chairman of the state party coordination committee in 2022.
Malik first came to the limelight in March 2022 when he led a massive rally from Kahara to Doda town on various public issues as a show of his party’s strength in the belt.
Several local residents say that in the wake of abrogation of Article 370 granting special status to J&K, when many Jammu leaders had chosen to confine themselves to their homes, Malik used to take to the streets to raise people’s problems.
Last year, Malik led a demonstration against the eviction drive initiated by the authorities in Jammu’s Bhatindi area. He along with his supporters was held by the police, but released later.
Malik also contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in the Udhampur constituency as an Independent, but finished fourth. Union minister Jitendra Singh retained the seat by defeating the Congress’s Chaudhary Lal Singh.
According to his affidavit in the nomination papers for the Assembly polls, submitted to the Election Commission (EC), Malik has nearly half a dozen FIRs registered against him regarding offences including criminal intimidation, house trespass and promoting enmity between different groups. All these cases were filed against him in the Gandoh police station from 2021 to 2024.
Malik does not have any immovable property including vehicles, as per his declaration.
The AAP had fielded its candidates in seven Assembly seats out of J&K’s 90 seats. The party, which has been in power in Delhi and Punjab, was granted the “national party” status by the EC in September last year. It has MLAs in Gujarat and Goa, too.
