The National Conference-Congress combine is set to form the government in Jammu and Kashmir, which on Tuesday delivered a massive verdict in support of the parties opposed to the scrapping of Article 370 and the demotion of the erstwhile state to a Union Territory.
The results also dealt a resounding blow to the BJP’s goal of installing Jammu
and Kashmir’s first Hindu chief minister.
However, the verdict is likely to leave the new government vulnerable to a crisis as the NC and the Congress failed to win even a single seat in Jammu’s Dogra heartland comprising four districts — Jammu City, Udhampur, Samba and Kathua.
The four districts, home to 24 MLAs, are unlikely to find any representation in the new government, setting the stage for another round of Hindu-Muslim confrontation. Of the 24 seats, the BJP won 22 and Independents two.
The NC won 35 of Kashmir’s 47 seats and the remaining seven in Jammu. With three seats, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was the worst performer among the entrenched players. The party paid the price for aligning with the BJP in the last 2014 Assembly elections.
Tuesday’s results’ first political casualty was BJP president Ravinder Raina, who was trounced in his home seat Nowshera by the NC’s Surinder Choudhary by a margin of 7,819 votes. Raina announced his resignation after his defeat.
The results are a stunning rebuff to the BJP’s orchestrated campaign to vilify the regional players, particularly the NC and the PDP, besides the Congress.
Viewed under the BJP’s nationalist prism, the NC manifesto that called for the restoration of pre-1953 status for Jammu and Kashmir and a quasi-independence position that will only leave defence, foreign affairs, currency and communications with the Centre, bordered on treason. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently claimed that the alliance’s agenda was the same as that of Pakistan.
With the NC bagging 42 seats, the BJP will find it difficult to explain whether it was a vote for Pakistan.
The alliance partners — the NC, Congress and the CPM — bagged 49 seats, three more than the majority mark of 46 in a House of 90elected members.
The BJP got 29 seats, all of them in Jammu. The Congress and the PDP fared poorly with six and three seats, respectively.
Jammu’s Dalit leader R.K. Kalsotra said the alliance’s failure to win any seat in Jammu’s Hindu heartland could create problems for it.
“The BJP has been peddling the promise of installing a Dogra (Hindu) as a chief minister. Far from that, they are likely to have no representation in the new government. I think a way out could be that the alliance nominates some MLAs from among (Hindu) Dalits or OBCs, who form the majority of the Hindus in Jammu, to the Assembly and balance the things between Kashmir and Jammu,” Kalsotra told The Telegraph.
The NC’s 42-seat tally has broken the jinx of the 28-seat hurdle that no party could cross since the 1996 Assembly elections.
The NC would have delivered a majority on its own but for four rebel candidates — Sajjad Kullay from Shopian, Pyare Lal Sharma from Inderwal, Choudhary Mohammad Akram from Surankote and Muzaffar Iqbal Khan from Thanamandi. After being denied tickets, they fought as Independents and won.
‘BJP proxies’
The parties believed to be the BJP’s proxies also fared miserably.
Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Party and Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Party failed to open their account. Peoples Conference’s Sajad Lone retained his Handwara seat but won by a measly margin of 600 votes despite his strong anti-BJP rhetoric in public.
The Centre’s ploy to allow jailed Baramulla MP Sheikh Abdul Rashid, out on bail in a terror-funding case, and the Jamaat-e-Islami to contest also boomeranged. Jamaat could not win a single seat while Rashid’s party won a lone seat — Langate.
The BJP’s outreach to Pahari Muslims didn’t yield any results as none of its Pahari Muslim candidates won.
