PDP president Mehbooba Mufti lost the Anantnag seat in Jammu and Kashmir in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by approximately 10,000 votes and was left at the third spot.

National Conferences Hasnain Masoodi won the seat. Congress Ghulam Ahmad Mir got just 2,500 more than Mufti.

Anantnag was once a PDP stronghold and Mufti has never lost an election .

In 2014, Mufti won the seat by defeating Congresss candidate by a margin of 12,000 votes.

Mufti had resigned as state CM in 2018 after BJP broke ties with PDP and Governors rule was imposed.

Anantnag saw a lot of protests against India after the civilian unrest over militant Burhan Wanis killing in 2016 prompted a crackdown by the state . Also in Anantnag is the Pulwama assembly where the February terrorist attack took place in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.

The constituency voted in three phases due to security concerns.

During the first phase of the elections, Mufti had tweeted a video showing voters in Jammu raising anti-BJP slogans after they were allegedly roughed up by BSF jawans for not voting for the saffron party.

Mufti had also cautioned against the BJPs plan to scrap Article 370, which grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir, if it came back to power for a second term.