The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears to have dug itself into a hole ahead of the assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir. The ruling party’s plans of manipulating to its advantage the fractured political scenario both in the Kashmir Valley and the Jammu region are rapidly getting unstuck.
This may end up in either handing the upper hand to the alliance between the National Conference and the Congress party, or the Kashmiri radicals led by the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) recently started by gaoled separatist leader 'Engineer' Rashid who stunned the Modi government by sweeping the Lok Sabha polls in Baramulla a few months ago.
Both represent huge setbacks for the ruling party and central government. If the BJP and its motley group of dummy parties in the Valley are bested by the National Conference-Congress alliance, then it will be a huge blow, particularly in the context of a likely defeat in the Haryana assembly polls.
On the other hand, with the Awami Ittehad Party planning to contest nearly three dozen seats in Kashmir, an influx of radicals in the assembly could give a huge boost to the separatist movement in the Valley. Indeed, it would be reminiscent of the grievous mistake made by the BJP when it decided to experiment with a disastrous ruling coalition with the People's Democratic Party that triggered a wave of local and cross-border terrorism, resulting in a complete breakdown of law and order in the state, not only leading to the collapse of the government but paving the way for the revocation of Article 370 and the estrangement of people across the Valley from New Delhi more than ever before.
The BJP’s calculations to somehow get democratic legitimacy for the controversial revocation of Article 370 by holding assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir rested on three broad stratagems. The first involved a series of steps by the Modi government in the past few years including the J&K Re-organisation Act of 2019, the Delimitation Commission Report of 2022, and the J&K Re-organisation (Amendment Act) of 2023, along with giving voting rights to five nominated seats by the Lt Governor in the assembly, all designed to suit the ruling party.
The second strategy was to run an all-out Hindutva blitzkrieg campaign in Hindu majority Jammu buttressed through delimitation and other amendments by six extra assembly seats compared to just one for the Muslim majority Valley. By polarising the elections in Jammu on religious lines, the BJP expected to sweep the region leaving little scope for either the National Conference or the Congress party.
Finally, as far as Kashmir was concerned, the BJP, knowing that its own electoral prospects were dim in the Valley, decided on a novel strategy of encouraging multi-polar contests by small regional players, aimed at marginalising the two major local parties, ie, the National Conference and the PDP, as well as the Congress.
Some of these small parties were political proxies of the BJP like the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Conference led by Sajad Lone and the Kashmir Apni Party led by Altaf Bukhari, both currently sponsored by the authorities. However, the BJP also took the risk of politically activating jailed separatist leader 'Engineer' Rashid, allowing him parole to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Baramulla as an independent candidate.
However, the Lok Sabha poll results in the three parliamentary constituencies of Kashmir sparked a nasty surprise for the ruling party.
While the National Conference swept to victory in the capital Srinagar and Anantnag, it was ‘Engineer’ Rashid who, while defeating the National Conference chief Omar Abdullah, also trounced Sajad Lone of the Peoples Conference. Interestingly, the BJP had desisted from contesting the parliamentary polls in the Valley.
Significantly, the results from the two parliamentary constituencies Jammu and Udhampur in the Jammu region were also discouraging for the ruling party. Although the BJP managed to defeat the Congress in both seats, its victory margins from the 2019 elections were drastically slashed by over two lakh votes in each constituency.
Since the BJP had fielded the same candidates as last time, it was clear that the ruling party no longer has a stranglehold over the region with the Congress winning in several assembly segments.
To compound the BJP’s woes, ticket distribution for the assembly polls has turned out to be a nightmare.
The ruling party had announced last weekend 44 candidates but within 24 hours had to withdraw the list after it sparked off an open revolt in the local unit of the party with veteran party leaders complaining that they had been ignored to accommodate defectors and recent entrants to the party. In an embarrassing turnaround, the BJP replaced the candidate list in three instalments, with 16 candidates in the first, just one in the second, and 29 in the third, over the next few days.
In sharp contrast, despite initial hiccoughs, the National Conference and the Congress party have managed to stitch together an alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, agreeing to have five friendly contests. It remains to be seen whether the two parties can benefit from the hostility towards Article 370 not only in the Valley but also amongst many Hindus in Jammu who have not materially gained after their region being reduced to a union territory from a full-fledged state.
The setbacks to the BJP in the parliamentary polls and an impending loss to the party in Haryana may also cast a shadow on the party’s prospects in Jammu.
With the BJP clearly not in a position to call the shots, there is now uncertainty over the outcome of the elections that could well lead to a hung assembly with the usual horse-trading by the establishment or a fresh spell of Governor’s Rule in this sensitive and long-suffering region bordering Pakistan.
(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist and the author of ‘Behenji: A Political Biography of Mayawati’. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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