Leading this effort are Tariq Hameed Karra, President of the J&K Congress Unit, who is running from the Shalteng assembly segment, and Altaf Bukhari, chief of the Apni Party, contesting from Chanpora.

Voters queued outside polling stations in India's Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday to vote in the first provincial election being held in a decade in the Himalayan region that has grappled with years of militant violence.

Eight constituencies in the Jammu region and 16 from the Kashmir Valley voted on the first phase of assembly elections. Two more rounds of voting remain.