Like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, the Hazratbal Assembly constituency has been left bereft of the Muslim shrine, the holiest in Jammu and Kashmir, from which it draws its name.

The controversial delimitation exercise of 2022 has ensured that Srinagar’s Hazratbal area, which includes the mosque and two major localities home to more than 2,500 voters, is no longer part of the prestigious Hazratbal constituency.

Many say it’s like slicing the Kashi Vishwanath Temple away from the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat.

Srinagar’s Hazratbal area is now part of the Zadibal constituency, but without any geographical contiguity with it. Like a virtual electoral enclave, it remains surrounded by localities that remain part of Hazratbal constituency.

With Srinagar scheduled to vote on Wednesday, the implications of the measure are set to take shape on the ground.

Hazratbal houses a relic attributed to Prophet Muhammad and is visited by lakhs of devotees every year. It was sucked into Jammu and Kashmir’s searing politics in 1993 when security forces laid siege to it to flush out militants.

There had been an outcry during the delimitation that it was aimed at benefiting the BJP. The Election Commission not only gave six additional seats to Jammu, against just one new seat to Kashmir, but allegedly tailored the constituencies to give Hindus a numerical advantage in as many of them as possible.

“It (taking the Hazratbal shrine out of the constituency named after it) is a deliberate attempt to belittle the shrine, which is one of the holiest Muslim religious places on the subcontinent,” Hazratbal’s ousted imam, Dr Kamal-ud-din Farooqui, told The
Telegraph.

“For centuries, it has served as the biggest religious-cum-political platform in Kashmir along with the Jamia Masjid. Isn’t it an irony that the constituency gets its name from the shrine but the shrine area is not part of it?”

Farooqui, a scientist and professor at a government agricultural university who went on to become the Hazratbal imam, was brazenly ousted in April by the Jammu and Kashmir Wakf Board, headed by BJP leader Darakshan Andrabi, for presiding over the public conversion of a Hindu man to Islam.

Farooqui drew a contrast with the Mata Vaishno
Devi Assembly seat, named after the Hindu shrine
and carved out as a new constituency in Jammu by the
delimitation.

“The two developments are connected and suggest a
design,” he said.

He alleged a persistent effort by the administration to diminish Hazratbal’s significance and said that both the delimitation and his ouster were part of it.

“They made the conversion an alibi. The fact is, the administration was not happy with me as I was raising the Palestine issue at the shrine and had called for unity in
the Muslim world,” Farooqui said.

“I raised my voice equally against the militancy and said it was no solution. I used to advocate fighting peacefully for our rights.”

Abdul Hameed Lone, former president of the Hazratbal mohalla committee, said the panel had submitted a memorandum to the district administration in 2022 asking that the Hazratbal shrine area be returned to the Hazratbal constituency.

“The administration took no heed,” he said.