As the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir gears up for the Assembly polls after a long wait, political parties in the fray are busy stitching coalitions and devising strategies to tackle with opponents. The first phase of elections will be held on September 18, 2024; the second phase on September 25 and the last phase on October 01. Counting of the votes will be held on Oct 04.
While the Election Commission of India (ECI) is fully prepared to conduct a free and fair election, ample security measures are being put in place to ensure that enemies of democracy don’t get a chance to sabotage the polls. People are enthusiastic and so are political parties.
BJP: Going Solo
Bharatiya Janata Party won 25 Assembly seats in 2014 elections, when Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh together was a State. The party won all these seats from Jammu region while Kashmir province gave PDP 28 seats. They together formed the Government which fell in 2018. In 2019 Article 370 and 35A of Indian Constitution were scrapped and the State was divided into two Union Territories – Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. Since then, this will be the first Assembly election.
J&K’s old party, Jammu Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) headed by former Chief Minister and Union Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah, has stitched an Alliance with Indian National Congress (INC), CPI(M) and JK Panthers party in the spirit of INDIA Alliance and have finalised seat sharing.
The parties have decided that JKNC will contest on 51 seats, Congress on 32, one seat has been left for CPI (M) in Kashmir province and one for Panthers Party in Jammu region. The Congress and NC agreed to have a friendly contest on five seats.
However, BJP has decided to go solo. Its strategy of aligning with JK Peoples Conference (JKPC) and Apni Party in recently held Lok Sabha elections didn’t go well and both these parties have decided to contest separately. Though in Lok Sabha elections, BJP managed to retain Jammu and Udhampur LS seats, it could not transfer significant votes to Apni Party candidate, who fought from South Kashmir and Rajouri-Poonch.
The voting pattern in seven Assembly constituencies of Poonch and Rajouri, which have been clubbed with South Kashmir Lok Sabha seat, indicate that Apni Party and BJP combination couldn’t emerge a big challenge to JKNC, which was contesting with the support of Congress.
In Lok Sabha, JKNC’s Mian Altaf got 300,043 votes in these Assembly constituencies while BJP-backed Apni Party candidate got just 92,521 votes and PDP’s Mehbooba finished third at 88,459 votes.
Though there is a very thin difference between the votes polled by BJP-Apni Party candidate and PDP (precisely 4,062 votes), JKNC, in these constituencies, where BJP had high hopes, particularly after granting reservation to Pahari-speaking people and the candidate of the party from Pahari ethnic group, JKNC has taken a huge lead over Apni Party and BJP. The margin is no less than two lakh votes.
While it is very difficult to conclude that the voting pattern in LS polls will be replicated in Assembly polls, things may be different as this time round BJP is fielding its own candidates. While JKNC-Cong combination is focussing on the entire Union Territory of J&K, BJP’s focus, political watchers believe, would only be on Jammu region.
But there is a good news for BJP from that region – NC-Cong combination is going to have a friendly contest on five seats and as most of these seats are from Jammu region, and may be Mehbooba Mufti led PDP too will field its candidates there, BJP could be a gainer, some observers opine, but of course with fingers crossed.
This election is going to be very interesting. JKNC-Cong are fighting jointly, PDP, BJP, JKPC, Apni Party are in the field solo and then there are players like jailed Engineer Rashid, who surprised all by defeating Omar Abdullah of NC and Sajad Lone of JKPC. Some more political actors, who have been part of agitational politics in Kashmir for decades, are jumping the van. Question is what happened in North Kashmir in Lok Sabha polls, can it be repeated in Assembly elections, observers are cautiously opining that the Engineer Rashid experiment may not appeal to voters in the Assembly elections.
There is one good sign for democracy to flourish in J&K and that is the way people are joining the electoral process. As many as 279 candidates have filed their nomination papers across 24 Assembly Constituencies (ACs) of seven districts of Jammu and Kashmir which are going to polls in the first phase of the J&K Assembly election scheduled to be held on September 18, 2024.
That this number of candidates is joining the fray is an indication that the faith of people of Jammu and Kashmir has been restored in the institution of democracy and the voter percentage in Lok Sabha elections also indicates how keen the people of the UT are to be part of any and every democratic process.
