Can Mehbooba Win South Kashmir Despite Fall in PDP’s Popularity?

Will Mufti save the day, or will south Kashmir voters shake hands with the Congress party’s candidate?

Image used for representational purposes.

(Photo: Altered by Kamran Akhter / The Quint)

South Kashmir is on edge, this time, for a different reason.

Mehbooba Mufti, former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, is fighting a battle for a narrative and also a battle for her political survival. Will she be able to salvage her party, People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) pride in south Kashmir? Or, will south Kashmir voters shake hands with the Congress party's candidate Ghulam Ahmad Mir?

The Anantnag parliamentary constituency comprises four districts—Shopian, Pulwama, Kulgam and Anantnag— and is all set to go for polls on 23 April in the first phase. This parliamentary seat is spread over 16 assembly segments. The ground situation in the southern part is so bad that the elections for the constituency are being held in three phases over April and May.

The Anantnag parliamentary segment has been vacant since 2016, when Mehbooba Mufti took over as chief minister of the restive state after the demise of her father, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

A Challenge for Mehbooba Amid Palpable Anger

This election, local political commentators are saying, will pose a “major challenge” for Mehbooba.

A key observer alluded to the fact that Mehbooba has won six elections from here on the trot. But this time around, he believes, it will be “by no means a cakewalk for her”. According to him, “Mehbooba is fighting a survival battle, and this election is one of the major challenges of her political career thus far.”

He added that, “as a grassroots politician, Mehbooba built the party’s reputation, brick by brick, in south Kashmir. But now, it seems the same south Kashmir is going to be the graveyard of her party’s reputation, because of the performance of the last four years.”

In most parts of south Kashmir there is palpable anger against the former chief minister and her People’s Democratic Party for a variety of reasons. This includes the party’s “unholy alliance” with the BJP, that was forged in early 2015 and that lasted till mid-June 2018.

“Mehbooba Has Destroyed All that Her Father Built”

Besides the anger being obviously against the PDP’s “partnership in crime” with the BJP from March 2015 to June 2018, the people in south Kashmir are also outraged at the unprecedented violence against civilians in the aftermath of Burhan Wani’s killing in July 2016, the pellet-gun horror, and the massive crackdown against Jama’at-e-Islami, a widely respected and a cadre-based socio-political and religious party in the state.

A doctor who originally hails from Bijbehara town, told The Quint that “the late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was someone who didn’t encourage familial affiliation and took good care of the party workers as well as common people.”

“He (Mufti) was successful in creating a new political idiom when Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road was re-opened in April 2005 when he was the chief minister. In only three years, Mehbooba appears to have destroyed everything that her father had created with goodwill.”

Mehbooba’s ‘New Language of Resistance’

In her new avatar, Mehbooba is almost speaking the language of the Hurriyat while adopting a pro-people and anti-Delhi narrative. She is doing so as a unionist politician, hoping that voters in her party’s once bastion—south Kashmir—will elect her once more to the Indian parliament, while forgetting or ignoring all that has happened during her tenure as chief minister.

That is perhaps why Mehbooba is employing harsh language against the BJP after the saffron party broke its partnership with the PDP. With a new vocabulary and idiom, she is taking jibes at the BJP on a daily basis, with the objective to salvage some of her party’s pride among the Kashmiris.

In a recent interview with a New Delhi-based television channel, she said that “Modi failed to become Vajpayee,” a remark that Mehbooba often reiterates in her quotes and interviews to the local media in Kashmir.

Responding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s controversial ‘hitting touch and healing touch’ remark with respect to Jammu and Kashmir, she took to Twitter to write that the “PM in an interview claims his approach towards Kashmir is a hitting touch to separatists & militants & a healing touch for civilians. Wondering how returning mutilated bodies of militants to families, imposing a road ban twice a week & detaining & humiliating Kashmiris is healing.”

To Sway Anantnag Constituency Is No Child’s Play for Mehbooba

On 17 April she tweeted: “Every human, even a militant, deserves dignity after death. Armed forces use of chemicals in encounters disfiguring their bodies is inhuman. Imagine the emotions that’ll overcome a boy who sees his brother’s mutilated, charred body. Would you be surprised if he picked up a gun?”

Be that as it may, the Anantnag parliamentary constituency is by no means child’s play for Mehbooba Mufti. Many are skeptical and claim that “Mehbooba’s fate hangs in the balance and everything depends on the voter turnout.”

The voter turnout is expected to remain low in south Kashmir, especially in Shopian and Pulwama districts, while considerable voting is likely in parts of Anantnag and Kulgam districts. Overall, the turnout is not expected to go beyond 25 percent.

Reasonable voter turnout is likely in Shangus, Dooru, Kokernag, DH Pora, Pahalgam, Ashmuqam and other areas of Anantnag district.

“In most areas of the district, Congress candidate GA Mir wields substantial influence. In some pockets of Kulgam, National Conference’s candidate Justice (retired) Hasnain Masoodi has an edge,” said a local journalist in Anantnag.

According to officials of the Election Commission of India (ECI), there are about 14 lakh registered voters in the constituency overall, which include 35 transgender voters. However, in the first phase of elections, over five lakh voters will have the chance to exercise their franchise in Anantnag district. The district is spread across six assembly segments comprising Anantnag, Dooru, Kokernag, Shangus, Bijbehara and Pahalgam. There are 18 candidates in the fray.

The Mood in South Kashmir

Meanwhile, the contest in the Baramulla-Kupwara parliamentary constituency which went to polls on 11 April, was tough and triangular, as three ‘solid’ candidates competed against each other. In a neck-and-neck fight, no one among the National Conference’s Mohammad Akbar Lone, People’s Conference’s Raja Aijaz Ali, and Awami Ittehad Party’s Engineer Rashid is considered a ‘novice’ or a ‘clear favourite’ there.

In stark contrast though, the contest in south Kashmir was supposed to be pretty straightforward. But now there is suspense here too.

Even in Anantnag’s major town of Bijbehara, most people are spewing venom against the PDP. The opinion of people is no different in significant parts of Shopian and Pulwama districts, once considered PDP’s bastion.

Ground reports suggest that “the boycott politics will win” in most towns and villages of Shopian, Pulwama and Kulgam districts, while voting is expected in various parts of Anantnag district, especially in the interior hamlets.

If the voter turnout is above 20 percent in south Kashmir, Mehbooba has something to worry about. It could very well mean that the people there will be voting against her with the aim to make her lose the electoral battle.

Will Mehbooba’s New ‘Language of Resistance’ Work to Her Advantage?

Though some analysts believe that Mehbooba can still spring a surprise by winning the parliamentary seat in south Kashmir just like NC President Dr Farooq Abdullah is expected to do in the Srinagar segment, the unpalatable truth for the PDP is that the party’s credibility has taken a severe hit.

But is the electoral arithmetic really so simplistic, especially when the Baramulla-Kupwara parliamentary constituency in the north has recorded over 32 percent voter turnout, while the Srinagar-Budgam parliamentary segment witnessed below 15 percent turnout? The summer capital recorded only 7.6 percent voting on 18 April. Over 92 percent voters boycotted the polls in Srinagar.

Mehbooba’s main competitor is the Pradesh Congress Committee’s President Ghulam Ahmad Mir, who has been campaigning in the pockets of south Kashmir, including Anantnag town, Dooru, Kokernag and DH Pora, where he believes he wields influence over the voters.

“I am confident that I will be the winner,” Mir told this correspondent in Larnoo village, where he, along with senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and former MLA Kokernag Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed, addressed a rally last week.

The other major contestant there in south Kashmir is the National Conference’s Justice (retired) Hasnain Masoodi. The problem, however, is that NC does not have a cadre in the south.

(The writer is a journalist, columnist and analyst. He tweets @gowhargeelani. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)