Avinav Verma
Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir Bharatiya Janata Party is set to hold its first-ever State-level Core Body and organisational meeting in the Kashmir Valley on Sunday, with Srinagar hosting a two-day exercise as the party looks to strengthen its political presence beyond its traditional base in Jammu.
The meeting, scheduled for August 23 and 24, will bring together senior BJP leaders from Jammu and Kashmir, Members of Parliament, MLAs, members of the State Core Committee, office-bearers and senior party functionaries from Delhi.
The State Core Committee, State office-bearers and other senior leaders will meet on August 23, while BJP MLAs from Jammu will participate in the organisational deliberations on August 24.
The formal agenda includes organisational matters, a review of the party’s functioning, strengthening the organisation and chalking out its future course in Jammu and Kashmir. But holding the meeting in Srinagar, for the first time at the State-level Core Body, gives it a clear political significance.
The BJP has a strong electoral base in Jammu but is yet to win an Assembly seat in the Kashmir Valley. In the 2024 Assembly elections, the party won 29 seats, all from Jammu.
Yet, the election also showed that the BJP was not entirely out of the contest in Kashmir.
In Gurez, BJP candidate and former Gurez MLA Faqir Mohammad Khan polled 7,246 votes and lost to National Conference candidate Nazir Ahmad Khan by just 1,132 votes. Khan secured 8,378 votes.
The result put the BJP in second place in Gurez and gave the party one of its closest contests in the Valley.
The BJP also finished runner-up in two other Kashmir constituencies in the 2024 Assembly elections.
The Gurez contest is particularly relevant to the BJP’s efforts to expand in Kashmir because Khan was an experienced politician and had represented the constituency before.
He returned to the electoral contest in 2024 on a BJP ticket and secured more than 40 per cent of the votes.
Faqir Mohammad Khan died in March 2025, several months after the Assembly elections. For the BJP, however, the significance of the Gurez result lies in the electoral performance he delivered for the party and the narrow margin by which the BJP lost the seat.
The result also underlines why the BJP may need more experienced political faces if it wants to make a serious electoral push in the Valley.
Building an organisation requires workers and office-bearers, but Assembly elections also require candidates with a political profile, local networks and an understanding of constituency-level politics.
This is where the induction of seasoned politicians could become important for the BJP.
The party has been trying to expand its presence in Kashmir by bringing leaders and workers from different political backgrounds into its fold. The larger task, however, is to turn these additions into a functioning political organisation at the constituency and grassroots levels.
The Gurez result provides the party with an example of what an experienced political face can bring to a contest. The BJP did not win the seat, but it came within 1,132 votes of doing so.
The question now is whether the party can find similar political faces and build a stronger base in other parts of the Valley.
The Srinagar meeting also comes amid recent controversies involving two BJP functionaries in Pulwama.
Jammu and Kashmir Police recently registered an FIR against BJP Pulwama district president Showkat Gayoor following a complaint alleging extortion and criminal intimidation. The BJP subsequently suspended Gayoor from all organisational posts. The allegations are under investigation.
Within days, another BJP functionary, Aijaz Ahmad Shah, vice-president of the party’s Kisan Morcha in Pulwama, was booked in a separate case involving allegations of cheating and criminal intimidation.
The case was registered at Tral Police Station under Sections 420 and 506 of the IPC in connection with an alleged incident dating back to 2022.
The cases have not resulted in convictions and the allegations will be decided through the legal process.
However, their timing has put the BJP’s organisational functioning under scrutiny just as the party is preparing to expand its presence in Kashmir.
The action against Gayoor has also given the BJP an opportunity to demonstrate that allegations against party functionaries will not be allowed to become an organisational liability.
For a party seeking to bring more political workers and leaders into its fold, maintaining discipline and credibility within the organisation will be important.
The Srinagar meeting, therefore, comes at a crucial point for the BJP’s Kashmir strategy.
The party has to strengthen its organisation, improve its public image and find political faces capable of taking on established parties in the Valley.
The Gurez result has shown that the BJP can come close in a Kashmir constituency. The next challenge is to find more such constituencies and leaders—and turn close contests into victories.
The first State-level Core Body meeting in Srinagar could set the direction for that effort.
