Down To 3, Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP Suffers Worst Electoral Setback in J&K Polls

The Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP is down to just three assembly seats, projecting its worst-ever performance.

(Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

"The results have shown that the PDP is the choice of people in Kashmir and BJP in Jammu... this is a historic opportunity with the government at the centre that has a clear mandate of people to deliver..." said late former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and Mufti Muhammad Sayeed in February 2015 post the Assembly Elections.

Then, the People's Democratic Party (PDP) had won 28 seats, and emerged as the single largest party and went on to form the government in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Cut to 10 years later, the PDP, now led by late Sayeed's daughter Mehbooba Mufti, has been routed in the recently concluded Assembly elections after it managed to secure only three seats on 8 October.

While the National Conference-led INDIA Bloc is set to form the new government after its combined figure crossed the halfway mark in the 95-seat Assembly, this is the PDP's worst-ever electoral performance since it was founded in 1999 by Sayeed.

The party's vote share too dipped to 8.9 percent from 22.7 percent in 2014.

Conceding defeat, Mehbooba Mufti said, "I am happy that the mandate is not divided. The people have voted wisely, and have voted for a stable government..."

Acknowledging that the party had suffered a blow, Mufti said, "Our seats may be low but we are still a force to reckon with...PDP has a vision and an agenda and that will help us go forward with hope,” she told the media on 8 October.

Major Dent in PDP's South Kashmir Bastion

Since it's formation in 1999, the PDP saw a massive growth in its presence in Jammu and Kashmir. While in its debut election in 2002, the party won 16 seats, it secured 21 seats in 2008, and 28 seats in 2014.

Out of the 84 seats it contested this time, though , the PDP won only three seats— Kupwara, Tral, and Pulwama. Notably, Independent candidates won more seats (7) than PDP.

Prior to the elections, the Mufti-led party was banking on its traditional vote bank in South Kashmir for its survival. But its in this region that that party witnessed a major dent.

Out of the 16 seats in this region, PDP managed to retain Tral and Pulwama, as compared to the 11 seats it won in 2014. You can read more about this here.

• While PDP's youth wing president Waheed ur Rehman Para won from Pulwama with a margin of 8,148 votes, Rafiq Naik secured the Tral seat with a margin of just 461 seats.

• In 2014, the PDP had secured seven out of 16 seats in North Kashmir as opposed to one in 2024.

• The seat it won is in Kupwara where its candidate Fayaz Ahmad Mir defeated National Conference candidate Nasir Aslam Wani and People's Conference president Sajad Lone by nearly 9,500 votes and 20,000 votes respectively.

• Even in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, held months after the Pulwama attack, Mufti lost to NC's Hasnain Masoodi, a retired High Court judge, in Anantnag.

In Jammu and Kashmir's capital Srinagar, where the party won five seats out of eight in the 2014 Assembly election, it failed to retain a single seat.

The most embarrassing defeat for the party was in the Srigufwara-Bijbehara constituency, which is the home turf of the Mufti family, and seat that it had held since 1996. Mehbooba Mufti's daughter Iltija Mehbooba, a third-generation politician, lost to NCs Bashir Ahmad Shah Veeri by 9,770 votes.

In a tweet, Iltija expressed "gratitude" to party workers and said she accepts "the verdict of the people".

"I accept the verdict of the people. The love & affection I received from everyone in Bijbehara will always stay with me. Gratitude to my PDP workers who worked so hard throughout this campaign."

Iltija Mufti

Other losses include that of Mufti’s uncle Sartaj Madni from Kulgam, and senior PDP leaders like Abdul Rehman Veeri and Mehboob Beig losing from Anantnag East and Anantnag respectively.

Who Did PDP's Seats Go To?

Between 2014 and 2024, the PDP saw it's vote share fall from 37.43 percent to 16.3 percent in the Kashmir region, Hindustan Times reported.

But what's interesting is that the NC managed to grow at the cost of the PDP. Out of the 19 seats that PDP won in 2014 in this region, it lost 14 seats at the cost of NC.

An analysis by The Quint showed that 15 out of the total 28 seats, that PDP had won last time, have gone to the Farooq Abdullah-led party, while three seats (Dooru, Rajouri, and Anantnag) were won by the Congress and one seat (Shopian) by an Independent candidate.

Note: During the delimitation exercise in J&K in 2022, the number of assembly constituencies increased from 83 (excluding Ladakh) to 90. Six seats were added in Jammu and one in Kashmir.

Why PDP was Decimated in J&K

To put it simply— the PDP's past alliance with the BJP to form a government in 2014 had had a severe impact in this election as it failed to strike a chord with the voters this time.

The alliance was seen as a “betrayal”, leading to a wave of anger, especially in the South Kashmir region.

• The decline of the PDP's support base can be traced back to the party's justifications of civilian killings and pellet gun violence in the civil unrest following the death of Burhan Wani in 2016.

• This period added on resentment toward the PDP’s alliance with the BJP.

• When the abrogation of Article 370 took place in 2019, the party found itself in the crosshairs. Subsequently, 18 of its 28 MLAs quit PDP and went on to join parties closer to New Delhi.

• This, coupled with lockdowns, internet suspensions, and detention of leaders added to the dissatisfaction with the party. The party was blamed partly though the alliance ended a year earlier.

• The resentment become clear after Mehbooba Mufti's consecutive losses in the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In 2024, the party failed to win any of the three seats in the Valley.

• It's position weakened further due to the tough competition in South Kashmir by the emergence of independent candidates backed by now-banned Jamaat-e-Islami. The organisation had historically supported PDP before.

Though Mufti said it “is not out” from the picture in Jammu and Kashmir, the fate of the party hangs in the balance.