With the results of the much-hyped municipal elections out in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), a joke has been doing the rounds on social media. It goes like this: “In Ward Number 3 of Srinagar, two candidates were in the electoral fray. Only three votes out of 30,000 were polled. Guess which candidate divorced his wife?”
The joke aptly sums up how the democratic process has been reduced to a travesty in the Kashmir Valley under an unprecedented security cover.
For the uninitiated, municipal elections were held after 13 years in J&K. The BJP-led Centre projected the election as a barometer of normalcy. It has been an election of many firsts too.
A little over four percent of possible votes were polled in Kashmir Valley in the four-phase elections, the results of which were declared on Saturday, 20 October.
Of 624 seats spanning 40 municipal bodies in ten districts of the Valley, polling was held in only 208 seats. A total of 416 seats did not require voting, either because only one candidate was in fray or there was no candidate (over 30 percent of the wards received no nomination forms).
Election of Many Firsts
For the first time, the two main regional parties – the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party – boycotted an election in Kashmir.
For the first time, free insurance cover and other perks were offered to aspiring candidates who were locked up in hotels and government accommodations.
It was also the first time that the identity of those filing nomination forms was kept a secret till the results were declared. This level of secrecy was not invoked even at the peak of insurgency!
The electoral battles also have been ludicrously close.
Sample this: in SK Colony Ward of south Kashmir’s Anantnag town, out of 2,400-odd votes, only 14 were polled; four votes in favour of a BJP candidate and ten votes for a Congress candidate who was declared a ‘winner’.
While some voices from the mainstream favoured elections to fight ‘dynasty politics,’ the Hurriyat called for a boycott. The fortunes of ‘new dynasties’ on the political horizon are now surely likely to begin with these elections.
In a central Kashmir town, at least three candidates from the same family have been elected unopposed to the municipal committee. In the meanwhile in Baramulla, a ‘youth leader’, Touseef Raina, and his brother lost the battle for ‘change’ – while their mother won.
Some candidates knew of their fate in advance, because of dismal voting, “I already knew I was going to win. Nine votes were polled in my ward out of which eight were in my favour,” Bashir Mir, who won from Bagh-e-Mehtab Ward on BJP ticket, told The Quint.
Mir has straddled the mainstream political spectrum in Kashmir Valley for the last two decades and hopes to get elected to the state legislative assembly one day. “Boycotting elections is not the answer. It doesn’t matter if you win by one vote or thousands. Victory is victory,” he said.
Rule of Proxy?
On paper, the big winners in the elections were the independents. In the all-important 74 wards of Srinagar Municipal Corporation, for example, the independent candidates walked away with a clear majority of 49 wards.
Rather than just play kingmakers, this puts the independent candidates in positions where they could be kings themselves – especially those associated with local political parties.
Most of the independents are seen to be backed by the Sajad Lone-led Peoples Conference (PC) and a rebel PDP leader who was a minister in the PDP-BJP coalition government. The BJP contested 72 wards in Srinagar but won only four, marking its debut victory in an election in the Kashmir Valley, while the Congress, contesting in 46 wards, won just 15.
Junaid Mattu, who is touted to become the Mayor of Srinagar, resigned from the National Conference to contest as an ‘independent’ candidate. Sajad Lone had maintained his silence Mattu, who was formerly with the People’s Conference, and then broke the news of Junaid’s ‘ghar-wapsi’ on Twitter:
Of the 15 wards in Ganderbal, two were won by the BJP and the Congress while 13 were bagged by independents.
In Handwara, of the seven wards, six went uncontested. All the seven winning candidates are independents backed by PC. Almost all the independents have overt and covert associations with the political mainstream.
Cost of BJP’s ‘Rise’?
The BJP has good reason to feel happy about these elections in Kashmir. Not only has it scored a debut century in Muslim-majority Kashmir by winning 100 wards, the party has visibly strengthened its grip in the Hindu-majority Jammu region, emerging as the single largest party with 212 wards despite reportedly facing infighting and desertions. Ram Madhav, the BJP’s general secretary and point-man in Kashmir, tweeted triumphantly:
“Maiden century for BJP in Kashmir Valley. Out of 439 Urban Body seats, BJP has won 100. It will be in control of at least six municipal bodies. Hearty congratulations to BJP winners for holding India’s flag high when others simplay surrendered to anti-national forces n ran away [sic].”
But the victory has come at a huge cost. The dismal voter turnout in Kashmir Valley that remained confined to single digits, has cast a dark shadow on the upcoming Panchayat elections and the Lok Sabha elections next year.
“In absence of a decent voter turnout, the relevance of elections to the prevailing political discourse on the Kashmir conflict will certainly get affected. If people don’t vote in elections, how are you going to justify their credibility?” Noor A Baba, a political scientist and Dean of Social Science at the Central University of Kashmir, said.
“Years of investment in peace have been thrown to the wind because of the aggressive policy of the central government. With such dismal voter turnout, the argument that elections in J&K are ‘free and fair’ will be difficult to buy” he added.
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