Even though the counting of votes is still underway in Jammu and Kashmir, interesting voter trends are emerging from the Union Territory. Let us take a look:

* In 2014, the National Conference (NC) contested 85 seats and won 15, garnering 20.77% of the total votes. Back then, Farooq Abdullah's party was behind the BJP and JKPDP. In 2024, however, the party's prospects have turned around. At the time of filing this report, the party was leading on 43 seats while notably increasing its vote share to 23.27 per cent.

* The Bharatiya Janata Party had secured 25 seats in the 2014 state assembly elections, winning 26.23% of the vote share in the constituencies it contested. In the hotly-contested 2024 elections -- the first after the delimitation exercise -- the BJP still managed to garner 26.08 per cent of the votes while leading in 28 seats.

* In 2014, Mehbooba Mufti's Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (JKPDP) had a strong showing, contesting 84 seats and winning 28, with a vote share of 22.67%. A decade later, the party's fortune seemed to have nosedived. Till the filing of this report, PDP was ahead on just 3 seats while its voteshare shrank to 8.53 per cent. Perhaps, Mehbooba's decision not to contest backfired.

* Another party which has suffered a setback is the Congress. While, in 2014, the Congress party managed to win only 12 of the 86 seats it contested on and received 18.01% of the total votes, this time around the party's does not seem to be hitting the double-digit mark. Latest trends (at 10:45 am) show the party leading on 6 seats with a voteshare of 11.84 per cent.

The Congress-National Conference (NC) alliance, the People's Democratic Party (PDP), and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are the main contenders in the closely watched assembly elections, held five years after Jammu and Kashmir was reorganized into the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

The election will decide the fate of 873 candidates vying for a seat in the 90-member assembly.

Notable candidates in the fray include NC leader Omar Abdullah, who is contesting from Budgam and Ganderbal, Sajad Gani Lone of the People's Conference, running from Handwara and Kupwara, Pradesh Congress Committee President Tariq Hamid Karra (Batamaloo), and BJP state president Ravindra Raina (Nowshera).

Other significant candidates are AICC General Secretary Ghulam Ahmad Mir (Dooru), PDP leaders Waheed Para (Pulwama) and Iltija Mufti (Bijbehara), Apni Party President Altaf Bukhari (Chanapora), CPI(M) veteran Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami (Kulgam), and former deputy chief ministers Muzaffar Hussain Baig and Tara Chand.

Exit polls released on Saturday suggest that the NC-Congress alliance is in a favorable position, with the regional party expected to secure a large portion of the seats.