The voting for the Lok Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) concluded on 25 May during the sixth phase of polling. The Anantnag-Rajouri parliamentary seat is one of the three Valley-based Lok Sabha constituencies where elections have generated a wave of excitement and anticipation.
The seat was previously spread across the four volatile districts of South Kashmir. However, following the delimitation program in 2022, some areas under its jurisdiction, like Pulwama, were removed and new demarcations were drawn to incorporate seven segments from the districts of Poonch and Rajouri, located across the enormous, snow-clad Pir Panjal mountains that separate Kashmir from Jammu.
This was a very strategic decision. By making a significant chunk of Jammu-based voters (around 7.35 lakh) part of a Lok Sabha constituency in Kashmir, the ruling BJP hoped to frustrate the regional voting arithmetic.
To make this rearrangement more beneficial, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) employed another smart manoeuvre. It included the Pahari community of the Pir Panjal region in the Scheduled Tribes (ST) list. Paharis are a linguistic community scattered across the forested highlands of Rajouri and Poonch, including both Hindus and Muslims.
The idea was to create a dedicated vote bank for the BJP in those areas of Jammu that are now part of the larger Kashmir division, where the loyalty of voters was already divided among various political formations: National Conference (NC), People’s Democratic Party (PDP), People’s Conference (PC), Apni Party (AP), and more.
In short, by pitting the voting patterns of two distinct regions against each other, the BJP hoped to yield electoral dividends for itself and open a maiden account in at least one of the three Kashmir-based Lok Sabha seats. But Saturday’s voting shows that things are easier said than done for the BJP.
A large number of voters tried to avoid linking their decision to recent politics, and instead, shared anguish over joblessness and inflation. However, there were others who were blunt about their anger over the 2022 process of redrawing the electoral seats in Kashmir.
People said that the BJP intended to divide the people in J&K through mechanisms such as delimitation and they would bring about unity by voting for just one party, in an apparent reference to the NC.
For Mufti, It is Do or Die
Much is at stake for the former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who is fighting for the Anantnag seat, which is generally considered a PDP stronghold. Mufti is locked in a triangular contest with the NC’s Mian Altaf Larvi and Apni Party’s Zaffar Iqbal Manhas.
Larvi, a five-time legislator, is a religious authority among the nomad tribes of Gujjars and Bakarwals. They enjoy a numerical preponderance in Rajouri and Poonch, and have a significant presence in many pockets of South Kashmir. He is expected to corner a major share of votes from the tribal community.
Manhas, on the other hand, is a Pahari leader. He is one of those former PDP functionaries who abandoned the party after the BJP withdrew from the alliance with the PDP in June 2018, causing the J&K government to collapse.
The PDP was confronted with a wave of desertions after the episode, with much of its formidable rank and file abandoning the party and crossing over to formations such as the PC, AP, and Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP). That’s why the BJP, which is not fielding candidates in Kashmir, is backing Manhas.
PDP Alleges Rigging
However, when this reporter asked voters whether any of them were voting for Manhas, they rolled their eyes and said they did not know him. Mian Altaf, however, seemed to be a popular choice.
Recognising that their party has been systematically weakened over the last few years, PDP leaders are trying to pull out all the stops to make sure they don't lose the Anantnag-Rajouri seat. Senior figures from the party have been leading massive rallies in Pir Panjal over the last few weeks.
Iltija Mufti, the former CM’s daughter, even addressed the villagers in Rajouri in their tribal language during her speeches. All that has struck a chord with the voters there. “Before 2019, our MPs would come to see us only once every five years,” said Guftar Choudhary, a lawyer and tribal activist from Rajouri. “The PDP was literally made defunct after 2019. But it has brought itself back from the precipice. There’s a lot of goodwill for the PDP here, though Mian Sahib (Mian Altaf of the NC) continues to have a slight edge over them.”
On Saturday (25 May), Mehbooba Mufti sat in a protest outside the Police Station in Bijbehara in South Kashmir. She alleged that her polling agents were being detained “in a bid to resort to tactical rigging.”
Such allegations have also flared previously when regional parties alleged that delaying the elections to the Anantnag constituency, originally supposed to be held on 7 May, was aimed at manipulating the electoral outcomes. The NC’s Omar Abdullah termed it an “attempt to deny Bakarwals, who migrate to upper reaches in May, the chance to cast their votes.”
However, the tribal leaders, who spoke to The Quint, said Gujjars and Bakarwals were wary of these developments. “They returned briefly to their homes to vote and then resumed the seasonal migration", Zahid Parvaz, a Gujjar activist, said. This is evidenced by the high voting percentages in Pir Panjal, where turnout has exceeded 65 percent in all seven segments.
Winds of Change Within The Islamist Party
A new dynamic visible during this election season is the changing attitude of Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), a religious revivalist group in Kashmir, which was banned in 2019 for its association with militancy. The JeI grew to prominence after the 1975 accord between former J&K Chief Minister Sheikh Abdullah and Indira Gandhi, which led to the former dissolving his Plebiscite Front (PF) and committing to a pledge that J&K’s accession to India was “non-negotiable.”
The group saw an opportunity to capture the political space in Kashmir where people had started to grow disillusioned with Abdullah. The Islamist organisation was among the key constituents of the Muslim United Front (MUF) coalition participating in the 1987 Assembly elections, which were allegedly rigged in favour of the NC and the Congress party, sparking the insurgency. After that, it largely sided with calls to boycott the elections in Kashmir.
But over the past few weeks, former Jamaat functionaries have been talking to the press about participating in elections, should the Modi government consider revoking the ban. On Saturday, Muhammad Yousuf Wani, a former leader of the JeI in Anantnag, told the media that the group was in talks with the Indian government and whatever the group decides, “they will accept it as though it was an act of worship.”
He also revealed that their cadres were under directions to register their votes on the ballot, which they did. Certainly, this is going to be one of the key takeaways from Kashmir that the Modi government will flaunt as its success.
But political analysts in Kashmir say things are too vague at the current stage. “We are essentially in a post-militancy scenario. So groups like Jamaat will definitely be reconsidering their position in the shifting context”, said Noor Ahmad Baba, a retired Professor of Political Sciences at the Central University of Kashmir. “Even during the peak of militancy, there were internal dissensions within the Jamaat, with one faction openly expressing its desire to separate themselves from the militancy,” he added.
Baba said any tangible outcome will depend on what kind of understanding the Islamist group comes to with various stakeholders, including the government.
After the results are announced on 5 June, voting patterns in all three Lok Sabha seats of Kashmir will be subjected to close scrutiny, for they will decide the further course of action. With the Assembly polls next in line, the BJP will be concerned about losing J&K to a regional party, and if that happens, it will be the first assault on its direct authority over J&K since August 2019.
(Shakir Mir is an independent journalist. He has also written for The Wire.in, Article 14, Caravan Magazine, Firstpost, The Times of India and more. He tweets at @shakirmir. 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.)
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