Decision set to further alienate party leaders already angry over tickets to newcomers
With Thursday the last date for filing of nominations for the third phase of the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP has ended the suspense and made it clear that it would contest only 19 seats in the Valley. In an official release on Wednesday evening, the party said it will not announce the name of any other candidate for Kashmir now.
The BJP’s decision to skip 28 seats in the Valley has come despite the party’s senior leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah announcing that it will contest all the 90 Assembly seats in J&K — and party leaders claiming that they will form the government in the Union territory.
“The BJP has finalised its list of candidates for the Kashmir region. Out of 47 seats, the BJP will contest 19 in the Kashmir Valley,” the BJP said. “No new list of candidates will be announced.”
The decision will not go down well with senior BJP leaders who are already angry with the party leadership for “ignoring their sacrifices” while distributing tickets. Sources admitted it will further convince the leaders that they have no “future prospects” in the party.
“Many of us are already hurt and angry. We have given crucial years of our lives to the BJP. We have stood for the BJP when no one would (in the Valley),” a senior BJP leader in Srinagar said, adding: “When it was time to reward us, the party didn’t trust us. They either skipped the seats or fielded candidates who are new to the party.”
During his visit to the Valley in May, while interacting with party leaders, Shah had regretted the decision to skip all the three seats in the Valley during the Lok Sabha polls. The BJP had won the two seats falling in the Jammu province. Urging partymen to gear up for the J&K Assembly elections, he had said that the BJP will contest all the 90 seats this time.
There was no official reason forthcoming on why the BJP changed its mind. The party’s final 19 candidates in Kashmir comprise eight from 16 Assembly seats in South Kashmir, six from 15 in Central Kashmir and five from 16 in North Kashmir.
A group of party insiders said the party was not “expecting any miracles” in Kashmir, and the decision to field only 19 candidates was a “tactical” move, to help boost the numbers of some Independent candidates who have the potential to pull off an upset. Sources said the BJP was open to backing the candidates who have the potential to upset nominees of “dynastic” political parties.
A party leader said: “Our leadership knows that the BJP does not have a serious chance of winning a seat in the Valley except one Srinagar seat. So all the candidates who have been fielded are kind of dummy candidates… The party’s focus is on the Independents and some political parties that could help it come to power.”
Addressing a meeting of party workers recently, the BJP candidate from Anantnag in South Kashmir, Rafiq Wani, openly claimed that the new regional political parties and Independents were “ours”. “Engineer Rashid is ours, Sajad Lone too, Altaf Bukhari is also ours, and Nabi Azad (Ghulam Nabi Azad) also. The Independent candidates also belong to us,” he said.
Wani added that with the BJP fielding 20-odd of its own, “if we even get 20 seats here, it would make us 50 (out of total 90) – and that is our slogan”. “We will get 35 seats in Jammu and, in the Valley, five parties are our supporters.”
This is also what the BJP’s opponents in the Valley such as the National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party have been claiming, accusing the BJP of sponsoring “proxy” Independent candidates and unknown small parties in the race, to cut their votes.
