Dr Anil Singh
Following the announcement October 25 of the five-phased polls to the state assembly in Jammu & Kashmir, national parties like the 
Congress and the BJP, as well as state-level parties like National Conference (NC), People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and other local entities, girded up their loins to explore their electoral prospects. With the first phase of polls scheduled for November 25, all the contending parties started gearing up for the polls.
Out of the 87 seats in the assembly, Kashmir Valley has 44 seats, followed by Jammu with 37 and Ladakh four. In the outgoing assembly, the NC had 28 members, followed by the PDP with 21, the Congress with 17 and the BJP 11.
BJP’s election campaign in J&K was launched by its star campaigner Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah along with other senior leaders. Modi’s recurrent presence on the scene, most strikingly during the floods and Diwali, has lent substance to the public relations blitzkrieg let loose by his party. The BJP’s candidate from Sonawar constituency, Darkhshan Andrabi, who is taking on J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, is seen actively campaigning from door to door. Sharing her campaigning experiences with this writer in Srinagar the other day, she said door-to-door campaign was a better option to holding of rallies.
The BJP’s Mission 44-Plus in the 87-member assembly to enable it form the government seems to be too ambitious given the ground realities. BJP’s calculations are based on the Jammu and Ladakh regions which together gave the BJP an unprecedented three seats in this year’s General Elections. However, BJP’s strategy in the Kashmir Valley is different where its focus is not so much on a direct victory, but on forging an alliance with smaller political outfits. BJP’s support for Sajad Lone, who dons the ‘former separatist’ tag and a popular local leader, can help the party make inroads in the Valley which had been a ‘forbidden territory’ for the party until recently.
Dr Hina Shafi Bhat, daughter of former National Conference legislator Mohammad Shafi Bhat, is seen by many as the BJP’s most prominent face in the Valley. She is reported to have said that she will take to guns should the BJP choose to abrogate Article 370. According to some observers, if nothing, this has helped soften the party’s hard-line image in the Valley. At this stage, the question arises as to whether the multi-pronged strategy adopted by the BJP can help the party project a credible possibility of getting anywhere near its Mission 44 plus or not, especially in view of the fact that in the outgoing assembly it had only 11 members.
BJP’s hopes hinge on the Hindu-majority region of Jammu, where it will require to either sweep the region or win a maximum of the region’s 37 seats. However, it looks like a clean sweep for the BJP in the region is unlikely. The 30 per cent Muslim population in Jammu is concentrated in six of the region’s 10 districts. In these, there are around 17 assembly segments having a Muslim majority.
Media reports indicate a change of stance in BJP’s electoral strategy in J&K where the party has tailored itself to the election dynamics and sensibilities of the electorate in Jammu and Kashmir. The party released its election manifesto November 27, which makes no mention of Article 370. Instead, the emphasis is on development, apparently to garner Muslim support.
The Congress is active on the campaign front. Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Raj Babbar, Rashid Alvi, Ghulam Nabi Azad and many other senior leaders have been campaigning in J&K. Yesteryear Bollywood star and party’s senior leader Raj Babbar addressed many election rallies in North Kashmir. Congress leader Rashid Alvi addressed a series of rallies in the Valley wherein he took a dig at the BJP for demanding abrogation of Article 370 and said that the Congress would emerge as the single largest party in the state and form the next government.
Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, in his election rallies, alleged that the BJP “exploited” the people of J&K in the name of Article 370 for 60 years and was now asking them to forget it for the sake of gaining power. He also accused BJP of having a “divisive and polarising” agenda. However, electoral prospects of the Congress in J&K seem dim and it may perhaps not be able to touch the double digit figure.
The campaign of the National Conference (NC) in J&K is low- profile. Even Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who is also the working president of the ruling NC, has abandoned his family’s traditional Ganderbal seat, from where he had won the 2008 polls, and is contesting the assembly polls from Beerwah and Sonawar. In his public meetings, he has criticised the BJP for speaking in different voices on Article 370. Conceding ‘some Modi influence’ in Jammu and Ladakh, he said he was yet to see any such thing in Kashmir. The NC is confronted with the anti-incumbency factor and is also facing people’s wrath on account of the ruling party’s failure to redress the grievances of the flood-affected people.
The stand of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) led by Mehbooba Mufti is different from other parties having stakes in the assembly polls. The PDP had ruled out an alliance with the BJP, calling the party divisive ahead of the first phase polling in J&K. The party leadership is hopeful of getting a majority of its own. The PDP leader said: “We are confident of winning 45 to 50 seats. We have also decided to make inroads in Jammu and Doda. During Parliament elections, we were ahead in 41 assembly seats; we will make sure that we improve on that.” However, some sections of the people in the Valley are apprehensive of the victory of the PDP and fear such an eventuality could bring back militancy in the state.
Fifteen constituencies went to polls in the first phase of polls held November 25. As many as 123 candidates were in the fray for these constituencies, which were spread over seven districts. The turnout, on an average, was over 71 per cent. This high turnout indicated a ‘resounding victory of ballot over bullet’, as pointed out by Prime Minister Modi. Some experts have opined that the record voting in Kashmir entails two aspects: either people are voting for Modi or they are turning up at poll booths in the Valley to keep his party away. It has been observed that the BJP may not win Kashmir, but its electoral push has managed to impart more credibility to the elections in the eyes of the international audience.
The writer is the author of Prime Minister: Discourses in Indian Polity (2014) and currently in Srinagar for
research work.
