As Jammu and Kashmir is racing to elect 90 members to the assembly that has lost its authority and sting in the last five years, Masood Hussain writes about the state of politics that underwent immense changes since 2014 when the last election was held
Overexcited, the political parties in Jammu and Kashmir are hugely busy these days. With quite a few weeks given to mobilise a surcharged society for the assembly elections being held after a decade, their hands are full. Some parties are getting into discreet roll calls almost daily just to understand who “immigrated” into the fold and who fled. As the “pressures” are gradually narrowing down, insiders in the political class admit they are trying to breathe easy for the first time after 2019.
“We are readjusting to a new norm, something we had perhaps forgotten” one politician admitted, still unwilling to talk on record. “We may take a good time to get normal.”
From inside, the Jammu and Kashmir political class is confronted with two issues: undoing what happened to them and their parties in the last five years and negotiating the new labyrinth that was carved into the institution of politics and the legal infrastructure of it.
Reorganising Politics
It was not reorganising Jammu and Kashmir alone by bi-furcating the oldest state and taking away its constitutional privileges. Efforts to reorganise the politics were simultaneously taking place. Reorganising Kashmir politics had preceded the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir state.
Within days after the BJPDP government collapsed under its own weight, people started deserting the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Within a span of a few years, the last ruling party of Kashmir was looking at the desertion of 20 of its 28 lawmakers. This had reduced Mehboba’s party to a level where the entire leadership was captured in meetings in camera’s single frame. At times, people would joke around that PDP now comprises “Mehbooba, her Abhaiya and her daughter”.
Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari, the last finance minister (without having the luxury of presenting any budget) of the erstwhile state, moved with the maximum leaders and floated his own Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP). Others, who had some discomfort with the business tycoon, shook hands with Sajjad Lone, a minister in the BJPDP government from BJP quota, and joined the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Conference, a party he inherited from his slain father Abdul Gani Lone, a towering separatist leader. Part of the political reengineering took place before August 5, 2019, and continued till the political class moved out of their protective custody. The process continued till the Lok Sabha elections were announced.
The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC), the region’s oldest political party largely survived the make-and-break but shares the same challenges on the ground with other parties. Still, Omar Abdullah lost two – Devinder Singh Rana and Junaid Mattu – of his three close confidants to the wave. Rana, Surjit Singh Slathia, Mushtaq Bukhari and Shahnaz Gania were the notable lawmakers who joined the BJP.
Unlike JKNC, Congress witnessed as Vikar Rasool terms, “destruction” when Ghulam Nabi Azad launched Democratic Progressive Azad Party on September 26, 2022, after resigning from Congress, his school and home for 50 years. For the initial few days, it looked difficult to trace any Congressman as hoards switched sides.
When the Kashmir-based political class generated a consensus that led to the constitution of the Peoples Alliance on Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), it gradually was undone. Initially, Congress deserted and then Sajad Lone. Later, the two main parties – JKNC and PDP – fought with each other publicly and accused the Trojan, which is yet to be identified.
The Test
The political reorganisation in Jammu and Kashmir had practically bifurcated the Kashmir political class – all secular parties, though squabbling within, on one side and BJP having its own ‘like-minded’ in Apni Party, Peoples Conference and Azad’s party.
The first litmus test was the last Lok Sabha polls. Playing very intelligently, Home Minister Amit Shah flew to Jammu to convey that the BJP is not in a hurry to get the lotus into Kashmir. Instead, it supported the like-minded. BJP managed to retain the two Jammu seats for the third consecutive term, of the three Kashmir seats, JKNC won two and, expectedly, Engineer Rasheed, the two-time lawmaker currently in jail in a terror funding case, won with a huge margin, taking more votes than PDP, the last ruling party.
Though BJP’s vote share fell a bit but its strategy ensured that the party remains part of the discourse. The election was contested on only one issue – BJP. People presumed to be supportive of the BJP were punished and it did not exclude PDP. The massive participation was triggered by the hate against the BJP but the party sought credit for one of the highest participations in an election in Kashmir, rightly so.
“The (Lok Sabha) election was a major milestone,” admitted a PDP leader. “The representation that was usurped by the state and given to bureaucracy started shifting to the people. It was the first major dent that the enforced fear witnessed.” For all these years, he said, it was a monologue dominating the Kashmir narrative. “The election allowed us to talk about the real issues and start rebuilding the real narrative.”
Real Challenge
In the wars of the narratives, nothing much is left of the privileges that once made the Jammu and Kashmir assembly the most empowered one in the country. In transition, the assembly lost one house. The delimitation gave the assembly 90-elected berths in disproportionate seat readjustment between Kashmir and Jammu but changed certain political addresses to the advantage of the BJP and its ‘like-minded’.
Ahead of polls, an order gave too many powers to the Lieutenant Governor which included IAS, IPS, law department and many other things. In her fifth consecutive Jammu and Kashmir budget, Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman transferred the entire salary and pension liabilities of Jammu and Kashmir to the Ministry of Home Affairs, on the pattern of the Delhi.
It even irked Dr Karan Singh, the heir apparent, a Congressman who is ideologically closer to the right-wing. “Today, Jammu and Kashmir is completely different from the time of the Maharaja. We had a very special place, which is no longer there,” Singh said. “The first need now is to restore statehood and hold elections. Elections for a Union Territory are like holding elections for a glorious municipal council.”
The political class is aware of the crisis but lacks answers, right now. While some rely on the change at the central level, a few talk of involving the Supreme Court and the rest believe it requires a long struggle to revive the pre-2019 state. “We will cross the bridge,” JKNC leader Ajay Sadhotra said. “But let us reach the bridge first.” This is despite the ambitious manifestos that the political parties have put in the public domain that, like in the past, offer almost everything including greater autonomy to the erstwhile state.
All of a sudden the bureaucracy started rediscovering the assembly, they last time gave to a Bollywood crew for recording the flick Maharani. This added a new dimension to Jammu and Kashmir assembly where a film crew was permitted. Politicians took it with a pinch of salt as “actors and extras use it (assembly) as a set for TV dramas”. Now they have passed orders for the assembly’s repairs, if any.
It is now being discovered that the construction of the assembly complex at Jammu had been abandoned. The Jammu and Kashmir Project Construction Corporation started building the 5-storey complex with parking at lower and upper basements for 150 cars and 100 two-wheelers in 2010. Early this year when the complex was shifted to Road and Building Department, it was told that JKPCC had spent Rs 72 crore on it and it still requires Rs 134 crore for completion. Nothing has been done. So the new government will have to take oath of office in the same hall where Huma Qureshi acted as Rabri Devi, the wife of Lalu Prasad Yadav.
The Poll Focus
The elections, however, have always remained about the majority vote. Any party that can garner the support of 46 berths is the king in Jammu and Kashmir. If the last Lok Sabha election is any indication, the current holding is interesting.
In the last assembly election for the 87-member (including four Ladakh seats) house, conducted in 2014 fall, JKPDP had 28 seats, BJP had 25, JKNC had 15, Congress, and Peoples Conference had two each, CPI (M) one and three were independents. This position shifted dramatically in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, held within 10 months after the fall of the BJPDP government.
In a 90-seat assembly, currently dormant, the Lok Sabha 2024 results changed further. The JKNC secured 34 of the 90 assembly segments, though it contested in Kashmir only as it supported Congress in Jammu. The PDP managed a thin lead in only five seats. Sajad Gani Lone retained his home turf.
KL Image by Bilal Bahadur
Predictably, Engineer Rasheed was the major gainer. He polled more votes than PDP as a party and trounced Omar Abdullah and Sajad Lone. In jail for in a terror funding case, he contested from Baramulla Lok Sabha seat having 18 assembly seats. He wrested 14 of them.
Political pundits suggest that the Lok Sabha realities may not necessarily be reflected in the upcoming assembly polls. This is something that the political class is aware of. All the strategies and calculations are based on the newer realities that are completely different from the broader Lok Sabha polls. Jammu and Kashmir has only five Lok Sabha seats of which two each are with BJP and JKNC and one with the incarcerated Engineer.
Scene in BJP
Even though the BJP continues to be the most polled party in Jammu and Kashmir, thanks to the Hindu heartland, where it rules the ground despite a fall in vote share. In Lok Sabha, it polled 1258664 votes, which is 24.43 per cent of the overall votes polled across Jammu and Kashmir. It is a huge nosedive from 1648041 votes (46.67 per cent) in 2019.
The party thought process suggested it wanted to sweep Jammu, its traditional vote bank, make inroads in Rajouri Poonch, where it gave Pahari Speaking People (PSP) the ST status and collaborate with the link-minded in Kashmir. This would enable the party to stake a claim for the Jammu and Kashmir leadership. The main objective was to authenticate the August 5, 2019 decision-making by the party that did away with the special constitution position of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated the erstwhile state into two federally governed Union Territories including Ladakh without an assembly.
Post-2024 Lok Sabha polls, getting the magical 46 seems a tall order. The party brought back Ram Madhav, the key RSS ideologue who stitched the Agenda of Alliance with PDP in early 2015. Once the alliance fell after the BJP pulled out of the north-pole-south pole alliance, the party shifted Madhav out in September 2020 and rediscovered him in 2024.
Between 2015 and 2018, Ram Madhav was the most important BJP man in Jammu and Kashmir. He had developed immense contacts within the erstwhile state and across the party lines. Madhav’s returns signals a patch-up with RSS, where he was a national executive member, an outcome of the 3-day coordination committee meeting of the RSS with its 37 affiliates in Kerala’s Palakkad.
In post-2019 Jammu and Kashmir, the key RSS strategist may not be able to trigger any kind of miracle. Insiders suggest if the party manages to secure 25 seats it would be a major win. Its main problem is the erosion of its support base in the Jammu plains which suffered a lot in the last five years. Apart from innumerable land issues including the Roshni lands, the halt to durbar move and steep fall in incomes because of the fall in purchasing capacity in Kashmir (Jammu is the manufacturer and Kashmir is the consumer) added to the livelihood issues in the region.
Adding to the party crisis is the failure in the take-off of its like-minded in Kashmir. All three parties – Apni Party, Peoples Conference and Azad’s party have not been able to exhibit any mass acceptability in the Lok Sabha polls. Within days after the assembly elections were announced by the Election Commission India, all three parties witnessed a reverse migration, a process still going on. With G Kishan Reddy helping Madhav in managing Jammu and Kashmir, it remains to be seen how the RSS magic works.
The party is working in Rajouri Poonch hawking the SC status to the PSPs. By now, almost all the senior Pahari leaders have formally joined the BJP. These include Mushtaq Bukhari, Dr Shehnaz Gania (earlier with JKNC), Zulfiqar Choudhary, Murtaza Khan (earlier with PDP), Choudhary Abdul Gani (Congress) and many others. Will it compensate for the loss in the Jammu plains remains to be seen? Unlike PSPs, the BJP is not approaching the Gujjars and Bakerwals because they ensured their vote to JKNC in Lok Sabha polls.
Within Congress
The 2024 Lok Sabha poll dropped enough hints suggesting that Congress, India’s grand old party, can move up the charts despite the dominating persona of the Prime Minister. The Modi wave in 2014 impacted India in its length and breadth and Congress felt decimated in Jammu, eventually taking refuge in Kashmir.
Numerically Congress secured 998793 votes (19.38 per cent) from two Jammu Lok Sabha seats where it ended up as runner-up. However, the outcome indicated that Congres can reclaim part of the influence it once enjoyed in the region.
Given the fact that the dominating spirit of the alliances that Congress is stitching across the country is around secularism, the party has historically remained a JKNC ally (barring 2002). The alliance was already there in Lok Sabha polls and this time it is being discussed slightly threadbare because it involves 90 seats and not five or six (Ladakh included) Lok Sabha berths. With the leaders already happy over the arrangement, the two parties have constituted 5-member teams each which are finalising the nitty-gritty of the alliance. There are certain berths where both are keen to contest. To ensure that the few seats do not impact the spirit of bonhomie, Congress president Malikarjun Kharge has suggested that on such seats both the parties can have friendly contests.
When Rahul Gandhi and Kharge spoke to the party workers and the media during their overnight stay in Srinagar, they talked about secularism, the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and the democratic rights of the people that have been taken away from them. “This has never happened before. The UTs have become states, but it is the first time that a state has become a UT,” Rahul said. “It is a priority for us that the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh get their democratic rights back.” As has remained the tradition with the Gandhis, they talked about their Kashmir roots. Rahul also repeated that emotional connection to the extent that PCC Chief Tariq Hameed Karra suggested he contest from Kashmir. “In the market of hatred, we must open a shop of love,” Rahul told the youth, making almost one-third of the electorate in Jammu and Kashmir, right now.
Congress thought process is simple – to make Jammu and Kashmir yet another milestone in the INDIA alliance journey. They are hawking the national battle for secularism and offer Jammu and Kashmir restoration of statehood, something that the BJP is not opposed to. Informally at various levels, they have communicated in too many words that the Congress – given the present position, may not be able to restore Article 370, get back Article 35A or help rejoin the two federally governed Union Territories that once made the state of Jammu and Kashmir. However, they wish to stay committed so that Jammu and Kashmir get all the privileges that other states enjoy. The party is fighting a national battle and not the Kashmir war. This is why Rahul is ignoring BJP barbs and why is he not speaking on Article 370.
Insisting that Congress was the key force behind the Jammu and Kashmir’s accession, PDP leader Naeem Akhter believes Rahul has a “moral responsibility” to “bring us out from the dark pit we have been pushed into”. He had suggested he talk about “political prisoners”, “loot of local resources” and “denial of rights”. Right now, this is not a Congress priority. In Jammu, however, Rahul did talk about “outsiders” getting contracts at the cost of the natives.
The party has clinched a pre-poll alliance with JKNC, its focus remains on Jammu. However, there is some sadness within the party over picking a Kashmiri Muslim as the PCC chief while it ideally should have been a Jammu Hindu, insiders suggest. It also indicates that the party’s Jammu and Kashmir set-up is focusing more on Kashmir than on Jammu. This cross-interest could play a spoilsport in the polls.
The National Conference
Kashmir’s grand old party is excited and happy on various counts. Firstly, it is satisfied that the party has emerged as a cohesive force with the least damage in the last five years by way of desertions. The party blocked the re-entry of some politicians in the recent past while opening the gate for almost everybody.
Secondly, the party believes that the ground situation is supportive, after a long time. It is wisely using this situation to end its competition on the home turf by ensuring it remains the sole partner of the Congress. It did it during Lok Sabha and it is being repeated now.
Thirdly, it is willing to tell people that it can put a long battle for the restoration of peoples’ rights. Its manifesto is very ambitious and it talks about restoration of all scrapped articles and the autonomy. It is playing an emotional chord to a highly surcharged electorate.
Omar has already stated that the new assembly’s first resolution would be on August 5, 2019 decision-making. “The first order of business of the elected assembly of J&K should be to make it known not just to the rest of India but to the world at large that the people of J&K don’t agree with what happened to us on 5th August 2019, and then we start undoing what was done to us,” Omar recently said. “I believe that one of the main jobs of the elected chief minister will be to ensure that full statehood is restored to J&K at the earliest because only as a state we can start to undo the damage that has been done to J&K after 2019.”
Fourthly, Omar Abdullah is playing smart by asserting that he will avoid becoming Chief Minister as long as Jammu and Kashmir remains a UT. The thought process is that Jammu and Kashmir’s five-time Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah is willing to become the UT CEO so that Omar can succeed him when the statehood is restored.
Fifthly, the party is moving very cautiously. The Omar debacle in north Kashmir has made it very wary. At the same time, however, it is happy that early trends from south Kashmir suggest that it can have a grand re-entry as the voters are unwilling to forgive PDP for its alliance with the BJP. The party, however, has given up parts of Jammu, especially the plains but hopes it makes certain inroads in Poonch Rajouiri and Chenab Valley.
The PDP
The party always knew that it was not disappearing from the scene but the current situation gave it the satisfaction that some of the people who deserted it were coming back. It draws its satisfaction from the reality that the mass desertion after the 2018 fall of the government has not been able to improve the status of the parties where they nested for more than four years.
Whether or not their return is dictated by the powers that led them to leave the PDP post-2018 is not known.
Insiders admit that survival was looking impossible at some point in time. “Madam would always speak her heart,” one leader said. “She knew the costs but did not stop talking on every issue which is linked to the dignity and interests of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. This has helped us to retain a space where we could reconnect with people.” The party made “singular victimhood” an issue and made comparisons with its rivals and it eventually led to the unmaking of PAGD.
As was the case during Lok Sabha polls, the party despite being part of the INDIA alliance was singled out and made to contest against its other alliance partner, the JKNC. This time, it got repeated.
PDP publicly talked about an alliance with the JKNC and the Congress but there was no response. “Even if the Lok Sabha elections would have been a barometer, how many seats could have we sought,” one leader confided. “The arrogance is being exhibited at a scale that is damaging Kashmir.”
The party with visible parallel power centres within is now contesting on most of the berths across Kashmir. It is hoping against the hope that it reaches a double-digit. Mehbooba is known for aggressive campaigning and that has the potential to alter PDP’s fate. The party knows that it may not be able to rule Jammu and Kashmir shortly, but insiders insist that anybody wishing to rule may eventually require their support.
Rival in North
The emergence of Engineer Rasheed’s Awami Itehad Party (AIP) is an interesting phenomenon. In jail for five years now, Rasheed’s two sons decided to campaign for his father with the sole aim of garnering votes so that he could come out and rejoin the family. An outspoken person, Rasheed has created his own reputation during his twin stints in the assembly from Langate.
Using youth support and social media, the two sons emerged as the most visible campaigners. They had nothing to offer other than seeking help by way of a vote so that their father would move out of jail. This was the single-point agenda. Since no politician, not even the PAGD had ever talked about him in the last five years and people missed his absence, the electorate gave him almost half a million votes against Omar and Sajad. It was a vote-getting into a stone, an observer commented. He finally took the oath of office but is yet to get bail.
While everybody is waiting for him to get bail and move out, a lot many people have joined his party. His own brother has resigned from service and joined politics. The last vote was sought for his release. It is not known what will be the AIP agenda for seeking a vote for assembly. It has already released the first list of candidates. With the party founder behind bars, a new vote is being sought in his name.
By the middle of August, reports suggested he was to be shifted to Srinagar jail before permitting him to move out on parole. Sources said there might be some course correction based on how his release could impact the polls. A new force is emerging in north Kashmir. The custodians of the party have said they have no alliance with any party. If the party secures the same mandate it had in Lok Sabha and decides to sit in opposition, even ghosts cannot get a majority in a hung Kashmir assembly. It is too early to predict the outcome. Even Omar Abdullah cannot hazard a guess.
This is the scene in which Jammu and Kashmir is going to elections for the first time after the 2014 fall. The politics has changed and the geography of politics has hugely altered. It is a very basic kind of election for a very primitive house, most akin to Maharaja Hari Singh’s pre-partition Praja Sabha. There are issues but there is no authority to tackle them within the framework in vogue. How this all plays up in the new dance of democracy remains to be seen. Regardless of the outcome, it is expected to be the most interesting three-phase election ever.
