Entry of several unknowns in Valley race stirs political scene but its two mainstream parties still ahead
As the campaign for the first phase of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections drew to a close Monday, the Valley had cast its vote on at least one count. For the first time in three-and-a-half decades, Kashmir was witness to fearless campaigning, with enthusiastic public participation.
Of J&K’s 90 Assembly constituencies, 24 will see voting on September 18 – 16 in Kashmir province, and eight in Jammu – in what is the erstwhile state’s first election in 10 years, and first since the abrogation of Article 370.
In Kashmir, despite the entry of several unknowns, such as a high proportion of Independents, many small parties, the Jamaat-e-Islami’s return to the electoral fray, Engineer Rashid’s release on bail so that he could campaign in J&K polls, and his party’s last-minute “strategic alliance” with the Jamaat, the contest remained poised between the mainstream regional parties of National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party.
In Jammu too, the contest came down to its two most prominent parties – the BJP and Congress.
The BJP was expected to try and make a splash in Kashmir, given the stake it has put on Article 370 abrogation – both inside and outside J&K – and given that it had skipped altogether the Valley’s three seats in the Lok Sabha polls. However, the BJP ultimately fielded only 19 candidates across Kashmir’s 47 Assembly constituencies, giving a fillip to the NC and PDP claims that Independents and smaller parties such as Engineer Rashid’s Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) and Apni Party were actually “proxies” of the BJP.
Of the 19 seats the BJP is contesting in Kashmir, eight fall in the first phase.
Under the Congress-NC seat sharing, the Congress is contesting 29 seats in Jammu and nine in Kashmir, with the NC numbers being 17 and 39, respectively. Of these, the Congress is contesting four seats in Kashmir and four in Jammu in the first phase, with the NC numbers being 12 and six.
The two parties are in friendly fights in five seats, three of these in the first phase.
Voting in J&K is being held in three phases, with the second phase on September 25 and the third on October 1. The counting of votes will be on October 8.
With fears of low polling already quashed by record turnout for the Lok Sabha elections, the first phase of the Assembly elections saw intense campaigning. The PDP’s campaign revolved around the “anti-BJP politics” of its president Mehbooba Mufti, and “the pro-people governance” of its founder Mufti Mohammad Sayeed after taking over as the Chief Minister in 2002. All 16 seats voting in the first phase in the Valley fall in South Kashmir, which used to be a PDP bastion before its alliance with the BJP in 2014.
Also Read | South Kashmir campaign set to end, PDP spots green shoots, Jamaat struggles to get off ground
The NC’s campaign pivoted around the “betrayal” of the PDP in joining hands with the BJP to form a government in 2014, after having run an anti-BJP campaign.
Both the parties promised to strive for return of Article 370 and statehood to J&K.
Wary of the fallout outside the Union territory, the Congress, however, shied away from talking about J&K’s lost special status though it promised return of statehood. For the BJP, “dynastic politics” was the focus of its campaign.
The entry of Rashid in the last week of the campaign further heated up matters. With the AIP leader having posted one of the most impressive victories in the Lok Sabha polls in Kashmir by winning from Baramulla against NC vice-president Omar Abdullah and People’s Conference chief Sajad Lone, both the NC and PDP alleged a conspiracy in Rashid’s release on bail.
As Rashid did not get bail to contest his own election, the parties questioned teh timing of his release now. PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti asked how he was raising resources to contest as many as 35 seats, despite having spent the past five years in Tihar Jail.
The fact that the AIP could not put up many candidates with a good chance and has a long list of political turncoats on the ballot hasn’t helped.
Despite their differences, all parties sounded similar in at least their slogans. Each introduced their candidates with either “Dekho dekho kaun aaya, sher aaya, sher aya (See who has come, a lion has come, a lion has come)”, or “Naqli shera yeti wath dera, asli shera aagaya (Oh, the fake lion, make way, for the real lion has come)”. Sher or lion has a special connotation in the Valley, with its foremost leader Sheikh Abdullah celebrated as ‘Sher-i-Kashmir’.
With their focus concentrated on the eight Assembly seats in Jammu voting in the first phase, the Congress and BJP ran a low-key campaign in Kashmir. Though Congress president Malikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi addressed two public rallies, right at the start of the campaign, none of the top national leaders of the BJP visited the Valley for campaigning.
Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah held their rallies on the Jammu side, whose eight seats voting in the first phase fall in the Chenab Valley region bordering Kashmir.
Modi held a rally in Doda, the first for a PM in 40 years, while Shah held three meetings on the last day of the campaign on Monday. His meeting in Kishtwar district’s Paddar area was the first ever by a Union Home Minister there after 1947.
In this region, the party with the most at stake is former CM and ex-Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP). Given Azad’s flip-flops leading up to the elections, the DPAP is now left with only two candidates in the fray in Doda district. One in Inderwal and another in Bhaderwah withdrew.
From the Congress-NC side, both Rahul Gandhi and Farooq and Omar Abdullah campaigned in the area.
The alliance faced some tremors in Banihal, one of the seats where the parties are in a friendly fight, as Congress candidate Vikar Rasool Wani launched a no-holds-barred attack against the NC. Source
