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(From left) National Conference chief Omar Abdullah, Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Peoples’ Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti.
Credit: PTI Photos
The first election in a decade in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), promises multi-cornered contests in almost every constituency. New players are entering the electoral fray almost every day, including separatists and Islamists who used to shun them earlier.
Old alliances are being cast aside, and new ones are being forged.
A pre-election alliance between the National Conference (NC), the Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and the J&K Panthers’ Party — flexible enough to allow a few friendly contests — is firmly in place.
Two important leaders who lost the recent national elections, Omar Abdullah of the NC and Mehbooba Mufti, chief of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), have had to make tough decisions in the face of election enthusiasm. Abdullah, who had vowed not to contest the Assembly elections, has now taken a U-turn and decided to fight. Mehbooba is sitting out the election and is being fronted by her daughter Iltija Mufti in her home borough of Bijbehara.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, faces internal turbulence, that is spilling into the public domain. This can only mean that the central leadership of the party has weakened, reflected in its inability to tackle the dissensions within. If the BJP does not make a mark in Jammu, the gerrymandering to increase the number of constituencies in the Jammu region will have come to nought.
The delegation of three US diplomats to Srinagar — including apparently the CIA station chief in India — suggests that the US is keeping a close watch. Their presence may help check any potential mischief not only by terrorists sponsored from across the border, but also by domestic parties before the elections.
That they called on Abdullah may be an indicator of which way the Americans think the wind may be blowing.
In Jammu, the real issues are the fear of outsiders buying up land, and growing youth unemployment. These factors are likely to play out negatively for the BJP; and Jammu may not be a cakewalk for the party. The Gujjars and the newly-minted STs, the Paharis, are unlikely to come to the BJP’s rescue because of its anti-Muslim rhetoric in other parts of India.
While Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Party might win a few seats in the Jammu region and cut into the Muslim votes of the Congress and the NC, the party seems to be in the throes of extinction. Its performance in the Lok Sabha elections was dismal. The party is disintegrating, and Azad has announced he will not be able to campaign because of ill health.
Significantly, the BJP has decided to contest elections in the Kashmir Valley on its own, and has announced nine candidates so far. Its old allies, Altaf Bukhari’s J&K Apni Party and Sajjad Lone’s J&K Peoples’ Conference, have been left to their own devices.
In another important development, at least three outfits sympathetic to separatists, have decided to contest the election as independents. These include former members of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), the Awami Ittehad Party — launched by those claiming allegiance to independent MP from Baramulla Abdul Rashid Sheikh aka Engineer Rashid and the Tahreeq-e-Awam, a party launched by former militants and separatist sympathisers.
The JeI has been banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Of the five candidates formerly associated with the JeI who filed their nomination papers for the first phase, the candidature of the most famous of them all, Sarjan Barkati, has been rejected. In all, about a dozen former members of the JeI are expected to contest in this election.
This is not the first time that the JeI has sought to contest elections without deviating from its religious and separatist agenda. In 1963, the JeI backed independents in the panchayat elections. In 1971, it contested the Lok Sabha election but did not win a seat, although its candidate Syed Ali Shah Geelani won the Assembly elections in 1972, 1977, and 1987. In 1977, the JeI contested the Lok Sabha elections in alliance with the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Jan Sangh, to undermine the NC-Congress alliance but came a cropper. After the ‘rigged-elections’ of 1987, the JeI shunned the electoral process in J&K.
This time around, political observers believe, the JeI’s election participation is a tactical bid to get the government to lift the ban on it. That would help it to propagate its religious programme and quest for Islamic rule.
Other separatists and their sympathisers seem to have been motivated by the spectacular Lok Sabha success of Rashid who turned out to be a giant killer defeating Abdullah and Sajjad Lone in Baramulla. Their performance will confirm whether Rashid won based on his charisma and arrest on unproven charges, or whether he was able to tap into the subterranean anger of Kashmiri voters.
Whatever the outcome of the election, the real tussle for political power will begin thereafter — between the elected government and the Lt. Governor. The powers that were earlier enjoyed by the chief minister have been transferred by the Centre to the Lt Governor by amending the Transaction of Business Rules, in July.
The Lt Governor is now the deciding authority on the functioning (including appointment and transfers) of the All-India Services, which comprises the senior bureaucracy of the UT. The anti-corruption bureau, the directorate of public prosecutions, prisons, the appointment of the advocate general, other law officers, and the granting of sanctions for prosecution, filing an appeal, etc. will be in the Lt Governor’s domain.
If the empowering of the Lt Governor mirrors what has been done in Delhi, it is important to remember that Srinagar is not Delhi. It has a vast hinterland and its governments have had a history of autonomous functioning. So, the conflict between the elected government and the Lt Governor could be far more intense than one can imagine. If the Centre tries to control the Union Territory through its unelected proxy, despite an elected government, it will be a recipe for serious trouble.
(Bharat Bhushan is a Delhi-based journalist)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.