J&K Assembly polls no cakewalk for any single party

Srinagar : With the Election Commission of India (ECI) announcing the 3-phased Assembly polls in J&K, it seems that a hornet’s nest has been stirred up among the political parties in the union territory.

Immediately after the announcement was made by the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) in New Delhi, a churning of sorts is taking place in the political parties and the most affected by this development are the newly formed parties like the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) headed by former chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, the J&K Apni Party headed by Syed Altaf Bukhari and the People’s Conference (PC) headed by Sajad Gani Lone.

A senior leader and a close confidante of Azad, Taj Mohiuddin said on Saturday that he would rejoin the Congress after announcing that he was leaving the DPAP.

Taj left Congress immediately after Azad left it. Now it is going to be a ‘homecoming’ for the senior leader.

Azad did not field any candidate in the Lok Sabha elections in Kashmir. However, his candidate, G.M. Saroori from Jammu’s Kathua-Udhampur constituency lost the Lok Sabha election to Dr Jitendra Singh of the BJP.

As was expected, Azad’s parting ways with Congress after almost a lifetime association of over 50 years has finally cost him heavily.

Reports now suggest that Ghulam Nabi Azad is most likely going to rejoin the Congress party.

J&K Apni Party fielded its candidates Mohammad Ashraf Mir in Srinagar and Zafar Iqbal Manhas in Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seats and both candidates lost badly.

The two candidates lost their security deposit during the Lok Sabha elections. Worse than that, the J&K Apni Party did not get majority votes in any assembly segment of these two Lok Sabha constituencies.

Sajad Gani Lone of the PC fought the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat. Both Sajad and former chief minister and vice president of the National Conference (NC), Omar Abdullah were defeated by the incarcerated Awami Ittehad Party founder, Engineer Abdul Rashid Sheikh.

Sajad Gani Lone and Omar Abdullah, however, polled respectable number of votes and both saved their security deposit.

A senior leader and former minister, Choudhary Zulfiqar Ali of the J&K Apni Party met Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday and is likely to join the BJP soon.

The BJP is well entrenched in the Jammu division, but it is still trying to find its base in the Kashmir Valley.

The Congress has some presence in Kashmir, but its main electoral battle during the assembly elections is going to be with the BJP in the Jammu division.

Farooq Abdullah's NC has a strong presence in the Valley (Kashmir) and also an appreciable political base in the Muslim-dominated assembly segments of the Jammu division.

This is the apparent position, but this might not be the end of the story.

Engineer Rashid has already emerged as a potential challenge to the NC in Kupwara, Bandipora and Baramulla districts.

Sources close to Engineer Rashid told IANS that the incarcerated leader is likely to field candidates of his party in these three districts.

In Baramulla, Kupwara and Bandipora districts, Engineer Rashid can upset the otherwise well-entrenched NC.

It is also likely that after they got disgruntled with Pakistan, the separatists especially those belonging to the banned Jamaat-e-Islami could field proxy candidates in the south Kashmir districts of Shopian, Kulgam, Anantnag and Pulwama.

Believing that the Jamaat-e-Islami proxies cannot win assembly seats would be behaving like the proverbial ostrich hiding one’s head in the sand.

Youth of Jamaati families who joined militancy have either been killed or detained to prevent them from disturbing the law and order situation.

If the Jamaati youth choose to fight Assembly elections on their own without declaring any affiliation with the Jamaat, it is constitutionally and legally impossible to prevent them from joining the democratic space.

Expecting that since these youth belong to Jamaati families and thus they would not win public support could be wrong as per past history.

In 1987, all anti-NC political parties fought the Assembly election and nothing short of blatant rigging by the then NC government kept the conglomerate, Muslim United Front (MUF) from winning a good number of seats.

What the anti-NC forces could not achieve in 1987, can be done in 2024 given the assurance of completely free, fair and fearless elections by the ECI.

The PDP headed by former chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti may be down, but not out. It can still win some seats to make its presence felt.

J&K Assembly has 90 seats out of which 74 constituencies are for the general category, nine for Scheduled Tribes and seven for Scheduled Castes.

Given the above scenario, it will be politically naive if the NC or any other party believes that getting the simple majority of 45 seats is a cakewalk.

The destiny of all political parties lies in the hands of the voters and believing that the voters would stand in one queue for any single political party would be expecting the impossible.