Major takeaways from election results in Kashmir and what they may mean for Assembly polls

The recently concluded Lok Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir was a huge win for Indian democracy. This region, wrought with terrorism, bad memories of rigged elections, “interference from Delhi” heartaches, conducted elections that were widely hailed as free and fair. The Modi government can successfully claim credit for restoring trust in the electoral process and ensuring significantly high voter turnouts.

Elections remained peaceful and no boycott calls were given by separatists and terrorists. All political parties campaigned freely without any shadow of terror looming over them.

Now that the dust has settled on the election excitement and we can look beyond electoral processes it is time to analyse what narratives gained centerstage during election campaigning in the Valley and what can we extrapolate from this verdict about the upcoming assembly elections that are scheduled to be held in a few months. All regional parties including National Conference and PDP were very vocal in telling their flock that this election was just a dress rehearsal for the finals that are coming in the shape of assembly elections.

Following are 11 takeaways from the election results in the Valley. The BJP chose not to contest in the Valley and I will discuss their decision separately.

1. Revival of regional parties: The Congress and the National conference turned out to be a formidable alliance. The Congress did not win anything but NC won two out of three seats and was a strong contender in the third. The Congress has an old but dedicated cadre in the Valley who did their bit in strengthening the NC. Regional Parties in J&K are not dead or discredited even after months of sustained campaign against them. The election process saw the revival of NC and PDP. The election gave them an opportunity to revive their cadre, and bring dormant issues to surface.

2. Nepotism is not an anathema: Vociferous campaigns against nepotism have yielded no results. This election campaign saw sons of Omar Abdullah, fourth generation scions of the Abdullah family, in limelight. They followed their father during campaign trips and while both sons maintained that politics was not on their immediate horizon, there are no prizes for guessing where such outings by sons of politicians lead to. Similarly, Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter assumed greater responsibility and unlike Abdullah kids has actually embraced the mantle of next generation politician from the Mufti family. Engineer Rashid who won as an independent from Baramulla constituency is in Tihar jail and his entire campaign was managed by his two sons — political novices — who managed to upset the apple cart and win the election for their father. Clearly Kashmir valley has no issues with nepotism and family run political organisations.

3. National Conference wave: There was a silent wave for the National Conference: While psephologists were looking for a wave in the rest of India, almost everyone missed the wave in favour of the National Conference. Omar Abdullah and his father Farooq Abdullah campaigned long and hard to prove that the Abdullah brand was not outdated. Omar attracted large crowds wherever he went as did Farooq Abdullah. Their social media campaign was managed well and they managed to get their cadre out on the streets.

4. Ticket distribution by NC: This got least attention in local media and national media but it was the most significant takeaway of this election in the Valley. Omar Abdullah was ready to eschew all traditional fault lines of Kashmiri society and present a combined Muslim unified face. He gave Srinagar seat to a Shia cleric, Aga Ruhullah and Anantnag-Rajouri seat to a Gujjar cleric, Mian Altaf. Omar Abdullah himself chose to challenge Sajad Lone in Baramulla constituency leaving their traditional safe seat of Srinagar for Aga Ruhullah. This ticket distribution galvanised the Muslim majority of the Valley and they responded with votes.

5. Mehbooba Mufti’s isolation: The PDP’s traditional cadre was erstwhile Jamaat-e-Islami cadre. Since the Government of India has announced a ban on Jamaat, their cadre has gone underground. Mehbooba found herself relatively isolated in the elections. She is part of the India alliance but could not carve out any alliance with the PDP’s arch rival, National Conference. However, if sometime in future the ban on Jamaat is lifted and one desperately hopes it is not, the PDP will bounce back as the only rival to the NC.

6. Double speak: Kashmiri politicians maintained their ill begotten reputation of speaking in forked tongue. What they said in Kashmiri language was markedly different from what they were saying in English and Urdu for the benefit of national media. In Kashmiri they were openly fanning soft separatism and “winning” their respect back from India. They talked about wrestling back police control and administrative control, they promoted xenophobia inciting people about “afsar who have come from outside”, they ‘warned” about Hindu India and how they have to maintain their unique Islamic character. But all this was said in Kashmiri language so the national media did not understand and didn’t care to understand and report.

7. Apni Party bit dust: The new party that had come up post abrogation of Article 370 led by businessman and erstwhile PDP member, Altaf Bukhari, was rejected by the people. The Apni Party even made an alliance with the People’s Conference of Sajad Lone and yet could not stand up against the NC onslaught. The Apni Party has since dissolved its district units and hopes to rebuild and reorganise.

8. Sajad Lone was more bluster than real deal: Sajad Lone managed to do the largest rally of this election season in Kashmir valley. He took on Omar Abdullah and called him all kinds of names from Tourist to ‘tarr baaz’ (Kashmiri for liar), the final verdict showed Sajad Lone nowhere close to winning the North Kashmir seat. Sajad Lone enjoys huge goodwill in North Kashmir but is not a pan Kashmir figure and this will be reflected in the Assembly elections as well.

9. Omar Abdullah’s makeover as Muslim Leader: Omar Abdullah has convincingly gone through a makeover. Projecting himself as a Muslim leader of ‘qaum’; he made a trip to Mecca even before the election campaign commenced. He made sure the photographs of his pilgrimage were posted on his social media handles prominently. Omar’s language has also gone through some change. While it is difficult to tell what language he uses in personal interactions, his public interactions are interspersed by overt Islamic vocabulary and he often talked about ‘zulm’ his ‘qaum’ had to go through.

10. Article 370 is a distant memory in Valley: Although all Valley-based parties pay lip service to Article 370, it is not an issue on ground at all. Local people have moved on. They have realised Article 370 in no way offered them any more security than the Indian Constitution already does. Restoration of statehood remains an issue. Biggest issues in this election were electricity, development, jobs and security.

11. Engineer Rashid factor: Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Engineer Rashid, was a wild card entry in Kashmir valley elections. Baramulla was set to be a tight contest between Sajad Lone and Omar Abdullah with Omar expected to have a narrow edge over Sajad. In the last few days before nomination was to be filed, it was suddenly announced that Engineer Rashid will also contest. Rashid is currently in Tihar Jail in Delhi for the last five years arrested under the stringent UAPA case. The word on the street was that Rashid’s candidature is being “facilitated” by agencies and he was expected to queer the pitch enough so as to tilt the Baramulla seat in favour of Sajad Lone. But the unexpected happened. The sea of support that Rashid got was beyond anyone’s imagination. His two sons leading the campaign only talked about freedom for their father. Their emotional pitch won over people and Omar Abdullah was defeated by almost two lakh votes. This was totally unexpected and a shock development supposedly for agencies too.

The BJP has unquestionably invested a lot in the Valley. Prime Minister Narendra Modi used significant political capital to abrogate Article 370 and reorganise the state. The peace dividends of this have been visible already: The valley is no longer a hostage to separatists and their whims and fancy. Schools run smoothly. Government offices open on time and remain open, administrative tasks are carried on smoothly. Popular street protests are no longer seen and stone throwing is now a distant memory. Yet, the BJP did not seem keen to reap the benefit of all the good work it had been doing and chose to not contest in the Valley.

While it was clear that Srinagar and Baramulla seats would be difficult for the BJP to win this time given the demographics, post reorganisation, there was hope that the BJP might use the Anantnag-Rajouri seat to try and gain a foothold in the Valley. However, that was not to be and this disappointed thousands of Kashmiri Pandits who were voting in exile and wanted to vote for a BJP Candidate. The BJP did manage to convey that KPs should choose non-NC, Non-PDP parties, alluding to People’s Conference and Apni Party, but it was difficult for Pandits to vote for those who they directly accuse to be bystanders of their genocide.

Similarly, the Pahadi community felt let down by no BJP candidate in the fray and even though the Home Minister made a surprise quick trip to Srinagar, his appeal to Pahadis didn’t help much. They felt obliged to vote for the BJP but in absence of the saffron party they were not going to choose parties as suggested by the BJP. This was a golden opportunity for the BJP to slowly build its cadre and even if it would have lost elections it would have gained trust of people. Losing elections is no shame in a democracy and those who lose today, win tomorrow.

If assembly elections are held as scheduled, the Valley will be a contest between the NC and the PDP. Furthermore, the polarisation and separatist narrative that gained hold during the Lok Sabha elections will only gain momentum and peak during the assembly elections. Confronting the separatist narrative then falls on the BJP since the other national party is already in alliance with the NC and the separatist rhetoric suits them. If the BJP chooses not to contest again, Kashmiri Pandits will be left with no option but to sit out and not vote at all.

The Assembly elections, therefore, pose a tough challenge before the Indian State. Does it allow the separatist sentiment to gain hold while trying to strengthen democracy via elections, or does it jump in the fray in the Valley and confront soft separatism leading to conflict on the streets? Or, should there be another reorganisation where Jammu is given separate statehood, a small union territory is carved out for Kashmiri Pandits and other minorities who are victims of genocide and then elections held in both union territories? This option of further reorganisation allows the BJP a strategic and civilisational foothold in the Valley. These questions must be asked and answered before the Assembly elections are held in the Valley. Otherwise, we must be prepared for the political status quo in the Valley.