After a decade, Assembly elections are happening in Jammu and Kashmir with fundamentally altered positions of all the stakeholders in the Kashmir Valley. The first of the three phase elections for the 90-member Assembly will take place on Wednesday in 24 seats spread across seven districts in the border State.
The BJP at the centre is single-mindedly working towards undercutting the strong regional parties in Kashmir – Farooq and Omar Abdullah-led National Conference, which has aligned with the Congress and Mehbooba Mufti-led People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Coinciding with the BJP’s stated intent is, ironically, the moves made by forces aligned with fundamentalist and separatist elements.
These elements include the independents backed by the banned Jamaat-e-Islami and Sheikh Abdul Rashid aka Engineer Rashid Awami Ittehad Party (AIP). Engineer Rashid, who has been in jail in Delhi on terror-funding charges and managed to win the Lok Sabha elections from Baramulla, has been granted bail for the duration of the elections. His party has announced an alliance with the Jamaat-e-Islami.
First phase
This alliance damages the PDP and the NC equally. In the first phase, eight of the 24 seats are located in Jammu and 16 are in Kashmir. All the 16 seats in Kashmir are distributed across four south Kashmir districts – Anantnag, Pulwama, Shopian and Kulgam. Before August 5, 2019, the area was nucleus of militant activities, witnessing intense fighting on a daily basis. The top and deeply radicalised militant commanders like Burhan Wani, Zakir Musa and Riyaz Naikoo belonged to south Kashmir.
Security personnel keep vigil as Polling officers carrying Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines walk to a bus to be transported to polling stations, ahead of the first phase of assembly elections in J&K September 18 in Pulwama district south Kashmir on Tuesday
| Photo Credit: IMRAN NISSAR
Kulgam has traditionally been a bastion for Jamaat-e-Islami, which won elections in the area from 1971 to 1987, the year it chose to withdraw from the electoral process. While Jamaat-e-Islami also has a notable presence in some pockets of Shopian and Pulwama districts, it did not secure any seats in these areas in previous elections. But this time, the Jamaat’s alliance with Engineer’s AIP is disturbing equations in almost all seats.
In Pulwama, for instance, Engineer’s announcement threw the local AIP candidate Mohammad Iqbal Sofi completely off balance. He had already been declared candidate by AIP but the Jamaat too is backing an independent, Dr Talat Majeed, in this constituency. Not knowing where he stood, Sofi decided to throw his lot with the National Conference and is now campaigning for Omar Abdullah. The seat was held earlier by the PDP which is going to be damaged by the Jamaat and AIP alliance because it used to earlier get some support from the Jamaat cadre.
“I am a founder member of Engineer Rashid’s party. Now I have been thrown out in the cold and suddenly, the party is backing the Jamaat. Obviously, this weakens the PDP. I have decided to support NC,” Sofi told businessline.
‘BJP proxy’
Veteran CPM leader and former MLA from Kulgam Yusuf Tarigami described the AIM and Jamaat alliance as a “proxy for the BJP”.
“Till yesterday, these people (the Jamaat) were denouncing elections and boycotting them. Now suddenly they want to contest and their candidates are being given police protection even though they are a banned organisation. How is all this possible without any support from the Centre and the BJP?” Tarigami said.
Dr Talat Majeed, Jamaat-backed candidate from Pulwama counters assertions of them being “BJP proxies” not just by Tarigami but also the PDP and the NC. “They say the same thing about everyone. I wouldn’t pay any heed to them. It’s absolutely baseless,” Majeed said.
The fact is, as the State heads for elections for the first time in ten years, the entry of elements hitherto opposed to any democratic engagement especially elections, into the fray has changed the political landscape. Whether the BJP will be able to form a government in the State on the basis of its support in Jammu will depend on the extent of damage inflicted by the fundamentalist elements on the legacy parties – the NC and PDP – in Kashmir.
