BJP's exit brings cheer to NC, PDP

Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s speech during BJP’s campaign in Jammu on Tuesday, 16 April, has remarkably changed the dynamics of the current Lok Sabha elections in the Kashmir Valley.
“In Jammu it was unmistakably BJP versus Congress on both the seats (of Jammu-Reasi and Udhampur-Doda). But in Kashmir, there were NC, PDP, BJP and two or three more parties which were perceived to be BJP’s allies. After Mr Amit Shah’s speech, BJP has withdrawn from the fray and left its perceived allies exposed. It’s now the same old NC-PDP theatre on all three seats (Anantnag, Srinagar, Baramulla) in Kashmir”, Jammu-based television journalist Faheen Tak observed.
According to Tak, BJP committed “two back-to-back mistakes” in Jammu and Kashmir in the last two weeks.
“First, the BJP’s J&K incharge Mr Tarun Chug met the Apni Party chief Altaf Bukhari and the Peoples Conference President Sajad Lone at the former’s residence near Lalchowk in broad daylight. Since that moment, both the leaders obviously became targets of the NC and the PDP who were already labelling them as BJP’s pre-poll allies. Since that day, both the leaders are trying to convince the Kashmiris that the meeting was coincidental and it had nothing to do with politics and elections. But Kashmir has a history. Perceptions persist for decades and centuries”, Tak asserted.
“Home Minister Amit Shah may be having his own planning and strategy but his Jammu speech has come as an unambiguous announcement of the BJP’s withdrawal from the fray in Kashmir. It is virtually BJP’s surrender before the NC and the PDP which it calls as the exploitative dynastic parties. Now the BJP is out and its allies are down on all three seats”, Tak added.
A middle-rung administrative officer, who has not been hiding his inclination and sympathies for the BJP, explained how more than 30 leaders and activists from different parties, including one former Lok Sabha member Choudhary Talib Hussain, former Minister Syed Mushtaq Bukhari, former MLCs Syed Rafeeq Shah and Dr Shehnaz Ganai and over a dozen District Development Councils (DDCs) and former Block Development Council (BDC) members had joined the BJP with “high hopes” but, according to him, they were now all “disillusioned and demoralised”.
“I’m afraid many of them will now return to the same old parties. Their options are now limited: either NC, or PDP'', said the serving officer from Jammu’s Rajouri-Poonch belt. He said that the politicians from other parties had joined the BJP with their calculation that the party would field its own candidates—particularly in Anatnag-Rajouri—and it would consolidate their position in their respective segments.
“Irrespective of BJP’s victory and defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, these leaders were aspiring to get the party’s ticket in the forthcoming Assembly, DDC, BDC and Urban Local Body elections. They were confident to win 6 of the 7 Assembly segments in Rajouri-Poonch and at least 4-5 segments in Kashmir. Now their plans are in total disarray”, said the pro-BJP officer.
A former BJP Minister admitted that after his party’s “surrender” in Kashmir, it was clearly an NC-PDP advantage in Kashmir. “Our biggest achievement was the ST (Scheduled Tribe) to the over 12 lakh Pahari population. By withdrawing from the contest, it has been completely frittered away”, he said on the condition of anonymity.
The BJP Government at the Centre has not only granted the ST status to the Pahari community and given it a dedicated reservation of 10 percent in all government jobs and scholarships but has also, for the first time, reserved 9 seats for STs in the Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory’s Assembly. “We were sure to get 90-100 percent of the Pahari vote. Now it will be distributed between NC, PDP and Apni Party which has fielded a Kashmiri Pahari as its candidate in Anantnag-Rajouri”, said the ex-Minister.
On the other hand, the grant of ST to Paharis has unsettled the over 8 lakh Gujjar population on one side and the Open Merit population on the other side. There is a common perception that by granting the ST status to Paharis and raising the ST reservation to 20 percent, the BJP Government has downsized the Open Merit quota from 50 percent to just 30 percent.
The UT’s Open Merit (non-reservation) population constituted over 65 percent of the total population. Political analysts believe that downsizing of the Open Merit quota in government jobs and scholarships could impact the polling and benefit only the opposition parties like the NC and the PDP.
In a significant development, immediately after the Union Home Minister’s Jammu visit, the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) founder-president Ghulam Nabi Azad has also withdrawn from the contest in Kashmir. On 2 April, senior party functionary Taj Mohiuddin had nominated Azad and Ghulam Mohammad Saroori as the DPAP’s candidate in Anantnag and Udhampur-Doda respectively.
A day after Shah’s visit to Jammu, DPAP on Wednesday nominated a greenhorn as Azad’s replacement in Anantnag. Like Bukhari and Lone, Azad was widely suspected to be the BJP’s proxy. His detractors, including the NC vice president and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, have been repeatedly claiming publicly that Azad and the two non-INDIA bloc leaders were contesting only for dividing the Muslim role “to benefit the BJP”.
While the members of the three particular parties were reportedly waiting for the BJP’s clandestine support without any exposure to them, the whole game plan appears to have gone awry with BJP’s decision to not contest from the Gujjar-Pahari dominated Anantnag-Rajouri constituency.
In his Jammu speech, Shah said that his party was “in no haste” to win elections in Kashmir. “I want to tell the youths of the valley that we have no intention to grab the valley. Our detractors are running propaganda that we are grabbers. Rest assured we aren’t. I have come here to tell the valley’s electorate that we are in no haste. When we will get their love, the lotus (BJP’s election symbol) will bloom in the Valley”, Shah said.
Shah beseeched the valley’s electorate to vote for “any party, except Farooq Abdullah’s, Mehbooba Mufti’s and Sonia Gandhi’s”. He told them that the NC, the PDP and the Congress would work “only for their own children; not for your sons and daughters”.

Updated On 4/19/2024 2:19:57 AM