Sensing angst over Article 370, the BJP is avoiding a direct contest and hoping proxy parties will win from Anantnag-Rajouri, Srinagar and Baramulla
The BJP’s Jammu and Kashmir chief Ravinder Raina was expecting his bosses in Delhi to make clear their decision on the candidate to be fielded for the Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat. Instead, Raina, on April 17, received a call that BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh was headed for Jammu.
Raina and his colleagues in the J&K BJP were eventually stunned to know that the party would not be nominating candidates for the Anantnag-Rajouri as well as Srinagar and Baramulla seats in the Kashmir Valley.
Polling will be held in Anantnag-Rajouri for May 7, in Srinagar on May 13 and Baramulla on May 20. Udhampur voted on April 19 while Jammu will do on April 26.
BJP leaders in Delhi confirmed the party will not be contesting from Anantnag-Rajouri, Srinagar and Baramulla. These are perhaps the only three seats among the total 543 across India where neither the BJP nor any of its pre-poll allies are in the fray in this election.
The general elections are the first major polls in J&K since the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in August 2019 and downgrading of the state into a Union territory.
The Narendra Modi government, since 2016, had made several political and strategic moves leading to the abrogation of Article 370 and J&K’s special status being revoked. The sense in the party is that this may have angered sections in the Valley and the presence of BJP candidates in the Lok Sabha election fray would only exacerbate such feelings.
A top security analyst well-versed with the Kashmir situation told INDIA TODAY that the Lok Sabha polls may well be a precursor to elections in J&K. And, as a senior BJP leader remarked: “For the BJP, nation comes first, the party is secondary. We are not afraid of making any sacrifice for the country.”
While the BJP’s electoral campaign across the country is pitching the decision on J&K taken in 2019 as a major achievement, in Udhampur and Jammu, the two parliamentary seats in the Jammu region, party leaders are projecting the contests as a battle between Prime Minister Modi, who “freed J&K from the clutches of Article 370” and “dynastic” parties like the Congress, National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that “exploited” the people of J&K.
Top BJP leaders told INDIA TODAY the party had decided to step away from contesting in Anantnag-Rajouri, Srinagar and Baramulla to avoid being targeted by “false narratives”. Instead, it has been decided to strategically provide support to other candidates in the fray.
In the past, the BJP has worked with most parties from the Kashmir Valley—NC, PDP and Sajjad Lone’s Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference. After the abrogation of Article 370, the Opposition parties had announced the Gupkar Alliance to oppose the BJP in the Valley. However, the NC and PDP parted ways to contest the Lok Sabha polls independently. In the Hindu-majority Jammu region, these parties are backing the Congress.
In Lone, the BJP has a potential proxy opponent against the NC’s Omar Abdullah for the Baramulla seat. In former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who pulled himself out of the race in Anantnag, the party has a potential proxy nominee for Srinagar. There is also a pool of Independents to back.
The BJP leadership realises there is lot of angst against the party in the Valley over the abrogation of Article 370, besides the absence of a robust cadre who can take Modi’s message of development to the grassroots. This may also pose challenges for the BJP or its allies. So, the BJP finds it more convenient to stay away from a direct contest and later try and wrest the support of the winners from the Valley. Source
