Amitava Mukherjee
(The author is a senior journalist and commentator)
This year’s Jammu & Kashmir Assembly election is certainly the second most important democratic exercise after the last Lok Sabha poll. Its outcome will not only be a verdict on the central government’s recent policies on the J&K but will have wider national and international ramifications. If the BJP and its allies fail to do well in the election, then the Narendra Modi government’s decision to abolish Article 370 of the Constitution will come into question.
The Jammu and Kashmir state assembly has 114 seats, but only 90 seats are electable; the rest 24 are reserved for the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir portion. Of the 90 seats, 47 are in the Kashmir valley and 43 are in the Jammu region. While the BJP is almost nonexistent in the Valley, it has to face contests from the Congress, the National Conference (NC), and some smaller parties in the Jammu region. The BJP has tried to offset this disadvantage by redrawing the maps of the constituencies. Its result is to be watched in the election outcome. But it is doubtful whether delimitation will give the BJP any advantage or not because the principal issue in the Valley is the question of autonomy, restoration of statehood, and also reinstallation of Article 370 of the Constitution.
But the poll has been welcomed by the people of Jammu and Kashmir. The reason behind this has given rise to two schools of opinion. The first one obviously emanates from the BJP quarter. It points out that the common people are tired of militancy. They want peace. They support the initiatives taken by the Narendra Modi government to bring back normalcy. The second school of opinion rubbishes all these claims. It avers that the people of J&K cannot accept loss of statehood and abrogation of Article 370. So they have vented out their anger by turning in large numbers to cast their votes.
Whatever the actual reason, this phenomenon—a large vote percentage—is good for democracy. In the last parliamentary election, even militantly infested constituencies like Srinagar and Anantnag experienced a big jump in their valid vote percentages than what they were during the 2019 parliamentary poll. Now, the first phase of this year’s J&K assembly election is over, and nearly 59 percent of voters have exercised their franchise. So the trend is encouraging.
For the sake of democracy, it would have been better if the National Conference-the Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of Mehbooba Mufti could stitch an alliance because otherwise there would always be a possibility of division of votes among them. If the division of votes really takes place, then that may help either the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) of engineer Rashid, the Jamaat-e-Islami candidates, or some separatists who are contesting as independents. Some local political compulsions, mostly on the part of the NC, have prevented the PDP from becoming a part of the NC-Congress alliance. Leaders of this alliance should have shown the wisdom of carrying the PDP along as the party of Mehbooba Mufti is showing signs of rejuvenation.
So, the BJP is obviously elated about the possibility of a fractured mandate. In the last parliamentary election, the combined vote share of the NC and the PDP reached more than 70 percent mark in Srinagar and Anantnag-Rajouri constituencies, which contain two-thirds of the Kashmir Valley’s 47 assembly seats. In the Valley, the PDP’s vote share is rising. In the 2024 Lok Sabha poll, it got 8.48 percent of the of the votes, which was only 3.38 in 2019. What will be the BJP’s strategy in such a convoluted scenario? In the last Lok Sabha poll, it tried to cut teeth in the Valley through some allies like the Apni Dal and the Peoples’ Conference. The Apni Dal does not have much base in the Valley, and its candidates lost security deposits wherever they contested. But more revealing is the plight of the Peoples’ Conference, whose leader Sajjad Lone lost in his stronghold of Baramullah. It is noteworthy that his father Abdul Gani Lone, the founder of the Peoples’ Conference, was once one of the principal faces in the Kashmir Valley who always championed a separate Kashmiri identity.
Into this troubled water come the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) and its leader Sheikh Abdul Rashid, or Engineer Rashid, as he is popularly called. He might be a deciding factor in the post-poll scenario. A civil engineer by profession, Rashid was so far lodged in Tihar jail on charges of terror funding but was recently released on bail. He won the Baramullah parliamentary constituency in the last Lok Sabha election in absentia from jail, defeating Omar Abdullah of the NC and Sajjad Lone of the Peoples’ Conference. Not only that, his party did very well in 14 assembly segments during the 2024 parliamentary poll.
But the National Conference has the most widespread cadre base. The three mainstream parties of the Valley, namely the NC, the PDP, and the Congress, have their respective committed votes. But there is a big chunk of voters who used to boycott votes since the last assembly election of 2014. In fact, they represent the ‘bruised Kashmiri identity’ more than the voters committed to mainstream parties do. This section may vote for Engineer Rashid. Now, it is to be watched whether Rashid still has the support base that he enjoyed during the parliamentary election. Pundits offer the argument that voters always view the assembly elections in a different light than what they think of Lok Sabha polls. However, in Kashmir, the situation is totally different. In the Valley, the one and only consideration is the Kashmiri identity.
Rashid’s Awami Ittehad Party is contesting in 34 seats—33 in the Valley and one in Jammu. He knows that he cannot make much dent in the Jammu region. In the Valley also, it may not be easy for Rashid to win seats, as his release from prison will be described by the NC, the Congress, and the PDP as a gift from the BJP. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that the Jammu region has an almost equal number of seats in comparison with the Valley. Here it will be a fight between the NC-Congress alliance and the BJP. If the last Lok Sabha poll is taken as the yardstick, then the Congress is on ascendance here. The result of the Udhampur parliamentary seat would prove it. The BJP won it in 2024, but its vote percentage declined by 10 percent while that of the Congress rose by almost identical margin.
The post-poll scenario will be tricky. Wisdom and statesmanship will be required to handle it.