EC Announces Dates for J&K Assembly Polls. Can BJP Break the Ice in Kashmir?

Every morning, Fida Hussain Wani, district vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), drives to the remote areas of northern Kashmir’s Baramulla along with its workers to meet the villagers. The meetings happen every other day at booth, village, panchayat, and district level.

At every meeting, Wani tries to discuss and highlight the developmental activities that the Prime Minister Modi-led government has done in Kashmir for the past four years.

As the Election Commission announced 18 September, 25 September, and 1 October as the dates for the three-phased assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), the BJP's election campaign has been in full swing.

The party has been reaching out to the people in all the districts of J&K. “Every day, a new person is joining,” says Wani. While the saffron party has maintained a strong presence in the Jammu region, it has not won any assembly seats in the Muslim-majority Kashmir region.

It is now, however, looking to "break the ice" after winning three seats in the District Development Council (DDC) elections in the Kashmir Valley in 2020. The BJP claims to have over four lakh members in the valley alone.

After revoking the special status, the government in 2022 redrew the electoral constituencies in the region. The Hindu-majority Jammu division was allocated an additional six assembly seats, while the Kashmir division received only one additional seat, bringing the total to 90 seats (excluding Ladakh). Before this, Jammu had 37 seats and the valley had 46.

Last year, while uploading the abrogation of Article 370 (August 2019), the Supreme Court of India directed the central government to hold assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir by September 2024.

After all, J&K has been under Governor’s rule since 2018 and its last assembly elections were held in 2014, when the BJP had won 25/37 seats from the Jammu region.

The Opposition parties assert that the public is unhappy with the BJP after it abrogated Article 370. This was evident in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, where the BJP, anticipating defeat, chose not to contest any of the three seats in the valley. Additionally, the party lost Ladakh, and the newly created parties it supported did not perform well either.

Still, the BJP has boldly claimed that it will form the government without the support of any regional party and will have a Hindu chief minister in the erstwhile state for the first time.

The traditional parties including the National Conference and the People's Democratic Party (PDP) have continued to emerge as the dominant forces in Kashmir, dominating the assembly segments in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

However, J&K BJP's Chief Spokesperson Sunil Sethi told The Quint that the party is confident to win at least 30-35 seats in the Jammu division and lend its support to some independent candidates in the valley. “We are eyeing double digits in the valley. We will go solo, not with a pre-poll alliance,” he said.

When asked how they would convince the voters to vote for the BJP, he said, “The people in Kashmir are satisfied with the return of peace. Business is flourishing and life is stable, This is what was expected from Kashmir.”

The BJP top brass has appointed Union Minister G Kishan Reddy as election-in-charge of the party for the assembly elections, who, in a recent meeting claimed that they are fully prepared and will form the next Government in J&K.

Political pundits, however, argue that the BJP will struggle even in the Hindu-dominated areas, let alone in the valley. “The people of Jammu aren’t happy with the BJP at all,” said Riyaz Malik, a senior journalist and political analyst. Malik argued that the people of Jammu have many complaints, including the discontinuation of the Darbar Move, slow business recovery, and a lack of progress in addressing their concerns.

Given the political landscape of Jammu and Kashmir, the region hasn’t witnessed a single party forming the government since 2002. Divisions along religious lines with significant differences in political preferences between the Kashmir Valley and the Jammu region have hampered any single party from winning a clear majority.

The last coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir was formed by the PDP and the BJP, but after the latter pulled out, the region has been directly ruled from New Delhi through the Lieutenant Governor.

J&K BJP Spokesperson Altaf Thakur told The Quint that the BJP government led by Modi has brought about “pro-people schemes” including the AB-PMJAY SEHAT scheme, the free ration scheme, and the Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana (PMRPY) which have provided relief to the commoners. “People are benefitting from these schemes and so, we are sure that people will vote in favour of the BJP.”

(Auqib Javeed is a Srinagar-based journalist. He tweets at @AuqibJaveed. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)