With the Lok Sabha polls taking place soon after Ramzan, the Muslim month of fasting, the political class is witnessing activity after a long hiatus. Right now, the issue dominating the scene is how they will share the six seats of the erstwhile state in a way that keeps the ruling BJP at pay, reports Masood Hussain, insisting 2024 is expected to be the year of elections in Jammu and Kashmir
With the Lok Sabha elections round the corner and LG Manoj Sinha asserting the government will stick to the deadline set by the Supreme Court for assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the politics is back to a ‘happening’ social space. An interesting facet of the developments is that ‘happenings’ come more to social media than to formal media. Political beings have started shifting shells and, as one politician put it, “free-floating electrons are in huge demand”. The migration of the flocks that have started will get to the next level by next fortnight.
Right now, the ruling BJP is making more news. The 2010 Padma Shri, Ghulam Mohammad Miraka Moma Kana has joined the BJP. The formal ceremony took place at Budgam where BJP District President, Hakim Ruhullah Ghazi formally welcomed Mir into the party. On Facebook, another party functionary announced that Siraj-ud-Din of Laam Tral, the erstwhile receptionist at Geelani’s office joined the party.
The larger story, however, seems to be that all the Pahari routes in Jammu and Kashmir are seemingly leading to the ruling BJP, a natural corollary of the inclusion of the community in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) list by the Government of India last month.
Within a week after the laws were passed by the twin houses of the parliament, the BJP leaders in Jammu were too occupied in receiving the crowds who joined the rightwing party. These included the erstwhile JK National Conference legislators, Syed Rafiq Shah (who moved from the Panthers Party to JKNC earlier), Syed Mushtaq Bukhari and Shahnaz Gania. Both of them had dissociated from the JKNC a long time ago and were waiting for the opportune time to acquire a new political identity.
The most recent development on, what political insiders term, “the redeployment of political forces”, was the interesting appearance of JK Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) founder and Deputy Chief Minister, Muzaffar Hussain Baig in the huge gathering at Jammu, to which Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke. Minutes later, the Padma Bushan Pahari leader, spoke to the media and heaped praises on the Prime Minister for the vision and the development Jammu and Kashmir is witnessing. He refused to have returned to JKPDP but did not accept he is walking into BJP.
A newspaper report, however, said Baig is “central” to the BJP’s plans of having the first Lok Sabha (LS) seat in Kashmir. “Some Pahari leaders have promised support to a BJP-backed independent candidate, preferably a Pahari, and this is where Baig comes into the picture,” the newspaper reported. “Pahari leaders are said to be insisting that he be fielded from Anantnag, a seat that Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Mehbooba both have represented (earlier).” The seat is currently held by former High Court judge, Hasnain Masoodi for JKNC. He is unlikely to be fielded this time.
The report has added a lot of grapevine to the small talks within the political class. The most popular story is that when Baig attended Mufti Sayeed’s anniversary event on January 7, 2024, and Mehbooba, a day later, the agenda was to seek the party’s support for his independent candidature from Anantnag.
The South Kashmir Anantnag constituency is one of the most ransacked segments in the last delimitation exercise. It was reduced from a Kashmir seat to a berth which has diverse ethnicities and agro-climatic zones. It is part of Rajouri and Poonch, to which it lacks surface communication. Kashmir politicians see it as the classic jerry-meandering to suit a political party. While the Rajouri Poonch districts are caught in a Gujjar-Pahari divide, the BJP is hoping for “a consolidation of Hindu and Pahari votes to win its first Lok Sabha seat in Kashmir.”
Is Mehbooba willing to support an erstwhile leader of her party remains to be seen? BJP insiders insist they remain invincible and lack any competition for the remaining two seats in Jammu as Modi wave has not died down.
Party’s Jammu and Kashmir leaders already had a sitting with the central leadership in which they handed over their panel of potential candidates for all the five berths falling in Jammu and Kashmir. Ladakh region has one berth and that is currently with the BJP. The JKNC has three berths – all in Kashmir.
Lone Ranger
The Jammu and Kashmir Peoples’ Conference has already announced that it is fielding Sajad Gani Lone, its president, from north Kashmir. While the party has already conveyed that it is unlikely to field any candidate for Jammu, it asserted that the party decision-makers are discussing with the cadres on the candidates for two other Kashmir seats, the central Kashmir and the so-called south Kashmir seat.
Sajad already contested unsuccessfully for LS from the same seat in 2009. In 2019, his party fielded erstwhile police officer Raja Ajaz Ali, who also lost to the JKNC with a margin of about 30,000 votes.
The Controversies
The exercise, however, is gradually triggering a lot of heat and dust though most of it remains off the public gaze and the cameras. JKNC, the oldest and the major political force of the region, is apparently at the centre of these controversies. It is unwilling to share any of the three Kashmir berths with any party. Its wisdom is simple: it is willing to discuss the seat-sharing arrangement for the berths which are with BJP, which means two in Jammu and one in Ladakh.
This has already added a lot of tensions within the anti-BJP loose alliance, the PAGD (Peoples’ Alliance on Gupkar Declaration, which was conceived after Article 370 was read down) that has rivals JKNC and JKPDP as its main constituents. Interestingly, both parties are members of the INDIA alliance, at the national level.
Omar Abdullah, recently said he had the first round of talks with the Congress, the major member of the alliance. “There were certain proposals put forward by Congress which were to be discussed within NC. One of the proposals has not found acceptance from NC’s senior leadership. So, we will go back and have a second round of discussions,” Omar told reporters. “It is only six seats, and anyway, three seats (in Kashmir) are held by NC and essentially, we are only discussing three seats – Jammu, Udhampur and Ladakh. I don’t think it will be too difficult and I am sure in the next round of discussion we will have it concluded.”
Congress holds that when it is the issue of seat-sharing, literally all the six seats of the erstwhile state are on the table. Ghulam Nabi Monga told reporters that the party has had a presence in Kashmir and it must contest “at least one seat from the Valley”. He insisted that the votes secured by the party in past indicate that Congress has strong footprints in Kashmir as the ongoing negotiations must consider them. Vikar Rasool Wani, who heads the almost sunken party in Jammu and Kashmir, said the negotiations are ongoing and it is possible to share the outcome of the interactions by the end of the first week of March.
In the coming days, the voters would wait to see how the desi political class responds to a situation in which they will defend the home turf. The real issue is how JKNC and JKPDP will manage the turf war and how they will still retain a relationship with the INDIA alliance, which essentially would require giving concessions to Congress. There are rumours around that both Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti will contest. Officially, however, the parties are keeping the cards close to their chest.
Prime Minister’s Visit
Prime Minister Narendra Modi already had a successful Jammu visit on February 20, 2024, in which he spoke to a huge gathering. Seen as an election rally, his speech – the first after the reading down of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, focussed on the historic intervention his party made. He talked about the dynastic politics in Jammu and Kashmir and asserted the erstwhile state would be developed at a better and faster pace. He unveiled multiple development projects totalling over Rs 32,000 crore.
Now, he is supposed to fly to Kashmir by the middle of March. Reports appearing in the media suggest he will be speaking to a rally in Anantnag, besides having another meeting in Srinagar. The Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat comprises Kashmir districts of Shopian, Kulgam and Anantnag, and Rajouri and Poonch districts of Jammu. Though it has only a small population of non-Muslim voters, the Muslim population living on the two sides of the Pir Panchal range are divided by a mountain, weather system, livelihood issues, language and ethnicity.
Repercussions on Assembly
Apni Party leader, Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari has asserted that for Jammu and Kashmir, the LS elections do not matter much because there are quite a few berths in the parliament for the region. By his wisdom, the assembly elections to Jammu and Kashmir are more important.
Political class, however, asserts that the outcome of the LS polls can have a serious impact on the voting pattern in the subsequent assembly elections and the local body polls. All local bodies – urban and rural, have completed their tenure and DDC will also reach their expiry date soon. Jammu and Kashmir is without an elected government since 2018 summer. Since then, its constitutional and geographic status changed. It is now a federally governed Union Territory with Ladakh as a separate entity. Now the Supreme Court has set September 2024 as the deadline for holding assembly elections.
LG Manoj Sinha, who was anticipated to contest LS polls from Gazipur (UP) has recently said he is not going because he is “focused on Jammu and Kashmir”. However, he said the Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir will be held before September while statehood will be restored at an appropriate time. This all indicates that 2024 is going to be the year of democracy in Jammu and Kashmir. Lok Sabha, assembly, Panchayat and Municipality – all elections are expected to be held in 2024.
