{"id":312932,"date":"2019-06-03T16:53:31","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T16:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=312932"},"modified":"2019-06-04T08:32:03","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T08:32:03","slug":"kashmir-after-lok-sabha-polls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/kashmir-after-lok-sabha-polls\/","title":{"rendered":"Kashmir after Lok Sabha polls"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As the BJP and its allies virtually swept through the country, it didn\u2019t fall behind in J&K too, India\u2019s only Muslim \u00a0majority state. The party secured \u00a0three of the six seats in the state, repeating \u00a0its 2014 performance, its best in the state.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is more, the party\u2019s vote share \u00a0enhanced to 46.4 per cent from 34.40 in 2014. The percentage showed that the BJP led in 27 out of 41 assembly seats in these three parliamentary constituencies.<\/span><\/p>\n

BJP leader and Union Minister Jitendra Singh won by 3.57 lakh votes defeating Congress\u2019 Vikramaditya Singh, the son of Jammu and Kashmir\u2019s last prince Karan Singh.<\/span><\/p>\n

Congress party itself, already reduced to a marginal player in the state lost from all the five seats it contested, polling just 1,011,527 votes which made a \u00a028.5 per cent share of total votes polled.<\/span><\/p>\n

The National Conference bagged all the three seats in the Valley, where polls \u00a0were largely boycotted by the people on the appeal from the separatist political and militant groups . The NC was contesting only three seats from the Valley having left other three for its alliance partner Congress which couldn\u2019t convert it into victory.<\/span><\/p>\n

The BJP fell short in Kashmir Valley, though, \u00a0managing to get only 2.96 per cent of votes \u00a0which is slightly higher than 1.33 per cent as compared to the 2014 polls.<\/span><\/p>\n

NC versus BJP<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The poll outcome has \u00a0split J&K between the BJP and the NC, \u00a0setting \u00a0stage for a tough contest between them \u00a0in the Assembly election which is likely to be held later this year. The scenario thus appears a repeat of the run up to \u00a02014 polls which too had split \u00a0J&K between two parties – that time it was the BJP and the PDP. The two parties went on to rule J&K in a coalition for close to three and a half years when the BJP suddenly withdrew support to the then Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and the government fell.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The history looks set to repeat itself. The \u00a0NC and the BJP are two major players on the scene. But while the NC\u2019s bid is backed by its growing support base in Kashmir Valley and in parts of Jammu, the BJP is banking on a consolidation of Hindu vote \u00a0plus a play of some incidental political factors to its favour – one of them being the division of Muslim vote bank along sectarian and ethnic lines, like Shia and Sunni and Gujjar, Pahari and Kashmiri respectively.<\/span><\/p>\n

The PDP and Congress have made their own calculations but they currently enjoy little public confidence. More so, in case of the PDP whose Lok Sabha campaign was weighed down by a strong anti-incumbency sentiment bordering on a mass rejection of the party. Former Chief Minister and the PDP president Mehbooba Mufti was reduced to a third position in the outcome of the election to the Anantnag parliamentary constituency. In 2014, Mufti won the seat by defeating Congress\u2019s candidate by a margin of 12,000 votes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Boycott factor<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

One important aspect of the Lok Sabha election in J&K is the widespread boycott of the exercise in Kashmir Valley. The election to three parliament constituencies in the Valley <\/span>witnessed low to moderate polling. The election to the troubled Anantnag constituency which was spread over three phases recorded an overall turnout of a meagre 8.76 per cent. In Srinagar constituency, it was a little higher at around 15 percent and in North Kashmir\u2019s Baramulla constituency the turnout was reasonably better at 35 percent. Cumulatively, the turnout in the entire Valley is around 17 percent. And this effectively meant that more than 83 percent of people \u00a0stayed away from the electoral process.<\/span><\/p>\n

Political pundits in the Valley blame the boycott for distorting the election outcome in the Valley. And they are right. In the recent Panchayat elections, the BJP won a number of wards in South Kashmir, the Valley\u2019s separatist hub.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t augur well for the Valley-focussed mainstream parties. Just in case the boycott turned out to be as sweeping as it did in Panchayat and Parliament polls, the BJP could even open its score in the Valley in Assembly polls. In that case, the BJP could even turn out to be a majority partner in the likely new coalition government in the state.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before Assembly polls<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

However, before the Assembly elections get underway, Kashmir is seized with a mortal fear of \u00a0the BJP going ahead with implementing its ideological agenda on the state.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Though,J&K has always been an issue in India\u2019s national polls, this time it \u00a0acquired a resonance unlike anytime in the past. With the \u00a0BJP making national security its central poll plank following the Pulwama attack which killed 40 CRPF personnel and triggered skirmishes with Pakistan, the issues related to J&K \u00a0moved to the centre-stage. The ruling party \u00a0 aggressively brought \u00a0up the situation in the state \u00a0to drum up public support. From the prime minister Narendra Modi on down to home minister Rajnath Singh, finance minister Arun Jaitley to Shah himself, the BJP was unrelenting on Kashmir in its campaign rhetoric.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not only that, unlike the Congress and the other opposition parties, the BJP\u2019s top leaders comprising PM Modi, Singh and Shah – the party\u2019s veritable triumvirate – \u00a0also visited J&K to deliver election speeches.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Also in its manifesto, the BJP reiterated its hard-line ideological position on the state. It has renewed its pledge to revoke Article 370 and 35A of the Constitution to play to its wider nationalist constituency. In Kashmir, the moves to withdraw these constitutional safeguards is seen as a bid to pave the way for a demographic change in the state.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Should the BJP choose to initiate these extraordinary steps, it will throw the state into turmoil. There\u2019s every possibility of the eruption of yet another mass unrest which could lead to more killings. However, it seems unlikely that the BJP would rush into these far-reaching constitutional changes before the Assembly polls which it would like to use to further strengthen its position in J&K Assembly. This would only legitimize the central government\u2019s constitutional intervention in the state.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, the coming months are likely to be full of dramatic developments in J&K. Much will depend on how and to what extent the BJP chooses to implement its agenda on the state.<\/span><\/p>\n

letters@tehelka.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the BJP and its allies virtually swept through the country, it didn\u2019t fall behind in J&K too, India\u2019s only Muslim \u00a0majority state. The party secured \u00a0three of the six seats in the state, repeating \u00a0its 2014 performance, its best in the state.\u00a0 What is more, the party\u2019s vote share \u00a0enhanced to 46.4 per cent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":312935,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,2205],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312932"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312944,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312932\/revisions\/312944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/312935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}