With the announcement of the election date for Jammu and Kashmir, hectic political activity has broken out in the state. This is the first election after the abolition of the special status.
The founder of the J&K Apni Party has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while there are unconfirmed reports that Ghulam Nabi Azad has Subscribe to the congress.
Can the opposition form a common bloc against the BJP or will the National Conference (NC) and the Congress at least continue their Lok Sabha alliance in the state elections? Or will all four major parties go it alone? The answer to this question will determine the course of these elections.
In the last three elections in the state, no party could secure a simple majority. In 2002, Congress and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) joined forces after the elections to form a government. In 2008, Congress supported the National Conference in a post-election agreement. In 2014, PDP and BJP joined forces to form a government for the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
Multi-sided battles
Quadripartite elections have made it difficult for any party to reach the halfway mark. The structure of the assembly is such that it is difficult for any party to win. Before delimitation, Kashmir Valley had 46 seats, Jammu 37 and Ladakh four.
In Kashmir, where the Muslim majority lives, the biggest battle is between the two regional parties: the PDP of the Mufti family and the NC of the Abdullah family. In Jammu, where the Hindu majority lives, the biggest battle is between the two national parties, the Congress Party and the BJP.
After delimitation, the total number of seats in the Legislative Assembly increased from 87 to 90, with Kashmir receiving 47 (+1) and Jammu 43 (+6) seats. The share of seats in Hindu-dominated Jammu increased from 42.5% to 47.8% after delimitation.
In the 2014 Vidhan Sabha elections, the PDP won 28 seats with 23% of the vote, the NC 15 with 21%, the BJP 25 with 23% and the Congress 12 with 18% of the vote.
While the BJP almost doubled its vote share, the PDP gained 8% and the NC lost 2%. BJP and PDP gained largely at the expense of others (independents and smaller parties). While the BJP won 25 of the 37 seats in Jammu, the PDP won 25 of the 46 seats in the Valley.
The BJP withdrew its support from the government in June 2018. In the 2019 general elections, the NC and the BJP won three seats each, with the former winning in Kashmir and the latter in Jammu and Ladakh.
In August 2019, the central government revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. In response, parties in the Kashmir Valley, including the NC, the PDP and some others, soon formed the Gupkar Alliance and demanded the restoration of Article 370.
The recent Lok Sabha elections
In the recently concluded assembly elections, the NC won two seats, the BJP two and an independent candidate one seat. Both former chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah lost the election. The PDP’s influence in the Lok Sabha declined as it failed to win any seat and received only 8.5% of the votes. The BJP did not contest in the Kashmir Valley and for tactical reasons supported Sajjad Lone’s party, the People’s Conference.
A section of voters are looking for new parties or leaderships, ideologies and fresh perspectives, away from the traditional parties. There is also confusion regarding the opposition alliance. Although both the NC and Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP are national allies of the opposition INDIA bloc, their traditional rivalry in Jammu and Kashmir, especially in the valley, may prevent them from forming an alliance in the assembly elections, just as they failed to do so in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
Can there be a united opposition?
Despite Farooq Abdullah’s statement that the National Conference will contest the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections alone, the Congress is urging his party to form a broader alliance for the assembly elections, stressing that the aim is to defeat the BJP and therefore all like-minded forces should join forces.
A united opposition could spell trouble for the BJP. The party hopes that the opposition will ultimately fail to forge an alliance. This would enable the BJP to win Jammu while the seats in the Kashmir Valley would be divided. It is therefore supporting proxies in the valley like Sajjad Lone.
But Jammu is not an easy place to win. A resurgent Congress party, emboldened by its nationwide performance in the Lok Sabha elections, could challenge the BJP here. Jammu also has many districts with a high Muslim population, such as Rajouri, Poonch and Ramban. That is why the NC and PDP have been able to win a few seats here, while the BJP has never won a seat in the valley.
It will be a very polarized election. All eyes are on the state’s voters, who have cast diverse mandates in all recent elections – 2002, 2008 and 2014. Will they cast a clear mandate this time or will post-election collusion dictate this election again? Only time will tell.
(Amitabh Tiwari is a political strategist and commentator. In his previous role, he was a corporate and investment banker.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
