NC-Congress Triumph End Centre’s 6-Year-Old Rule in J&K

Srinagar: The National Conference (NC)-Congress combine emerged victorious in Jammu and Kashmir’s first assembly elections in a decade and is readying to stake claim to form a new government that will end the Centre’s 6-year-old direct rule over the Himalayan region.

The alliance crossed the majority mark by winning 49 seats in the 90-member assembly, the polling for which was held in three phases from September 18. The NC has emerged as the majority partner with 42 wins to the Congress' dismal six.

Its vice president Omar Abdullah contested and won from two constituencies Budgam and Ganderbal and soon his father and NC president Farooq Abdullah declared him as the next chief minister of J&K. In the family bastion Ganderbal, he won by securing 32,727 votes and in Budgam by over 30,000 votes.

The BJP has retained its hold on the Jammu heartland by winning 29 seats-four more than bagged by it in the 2014 elections. But it failed to open an account in predominantly Muslim Valley where its overt and covert allies too have disappointed it. This has crushed the saffron party’s ambition of forming a government on its own with a Hindu chief minister from Jammu for the first time in J&K’s history.

However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “proud” of the BJP’s performance in J&K. "These elections in Jammu and Kashmir have been very special. They were held for the first time after the removal of Articles 370 and 35(A) and witnessed a high turnout, thus showing the people’s belief in democracy. I compliment each and every person of Jammu and Kashmir for this”, he wrote on the microblogging site ‘X’.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah who was among the BJP’s star campaigners claimed that the people of J&K have blessed the party with the highest percentage of votes in these elections and given it the highest number of seats in its history. “For this, I express my heartfelt gratitude to the people of J&K and congratulate all the workers of the J&K BJP for their tireless hard work”, he said.

This was also the first assembly election in J&K held after the Centre stripped the erstwhile state of its special status and split it up into two Union territories on August 5, 2019. NC president Mr. Abdullah termed the election outcome as people’s verdict against the contentious move.

However, the Congress individually has performed very poorly in Jammu as only one of its 29 candidates managed to win while its prominent leaders including two working presidents lost the elections in a region where it had got the lion's share in the seat-sharing agreement with its alliance partner NC. The lone seat the Congress managed to win in the Jammu region is Rajouri seat where its nominee Iftikhar Ahmed defeated his nearest rival, BJP’s Vibodh Gupta, by a margin of 1,404 votes after securing 28,923 votes. Among the star winners of the Congress are JKPCC chief Tariq Hameed Karra who has been returned from Srinagar’s Central Shalteng segment and AICC general secretary Ghulam Ahmed Mir who won from Dooru, his home constituency.

As per their pre-poll seat-sharing arrangement, the primary object of which was to “defeat the divisive BJP”, the NC had fielded its candidates on 51 seats and the Congress on 32 seats- mainly in the Jammu region. Since both parties had faced rebellion by several aspirants who were being dropped out in the ticket allocations, they decided to have a “friendly” fight on five seats. Two seats were left for the CPIM and Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP). While Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, the CPIM’s key face in J&K, has secured the Kulgam seat for the 5th consecutive time, the JKPP leader Harshdev Singh lost to BJP’s Balwant Singh Mankotia.

PDP could win only three seats, and the local watchers say that its overall dismal performance is mainly because a vast majority of people continues to see it a facilitator of BJP’s ingress into the Kashmir Valley. “Also, the anger and bitterness left by the PDP-BJP coalition government has preyed upon the people continually,” said political analyst Tariq Bhat. Among the key faces of the PDP who lost is Iltija Mufti, the daughter of its president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti. She was defeated by NC’s Basheer Ahmad Shah Veeri by a margin of over 9,000 votes in their home constituency Srigufwara-Bijbehara.

The shocking loss for the BJP is the defeat of its J&K unit chief Ravinder Raina in the Nowshera constituency of the Rajouri district. He lost to his NC rival Surinder Choudhary by 7,819 votes. Mr. Raina soon submitted his resignation to the party high command.

In terms of vote share, the BJP sees a significant rise, however. It has claimed 25.63 percent of votes polled which is 2.65 percent more than it had managed in the 2014 assembly elections. On the other hand, the NC has secured 23.44 percent-2.67 percent more than the last election- and its alliance partner the Congress 11.97 percent showing a drop of about six percent. The PDP’s vote share is 8.87 percent which is 13.8 percent fewer than its 2014 performance when it had won 28 seats.

J&K People’s Conference leader and former minister Sajad Gani Lone retained the Handwara seat with a narrow margin of 662 votes over Chowdry Mohammad Ramzan of the NC but lost in neighbouring Kupwara with a margin of 9,797 votes against Fayaz Mir of the PDP.

Syed Altaf Bukhari, chief of the J&K Apni Party has lost the Channapora constituency of Srinagar to NC’s Mushtaq Guroo. The other key faces of J&K politics who have lost include Congress working president and former deputy chief minister Tara Chand (Chhamb), incumbent working president and former minister Raman Bhalla (R. S. Pura), former JKPCC president Vikar Rasool Wani (Banihal), two-time former MP Choudhary Lal Singh (Basohli), former ministers Manohar Lal Sharma (Billawar), Yogesh Sawhney (Jammu East), Mula Ram (Marh) and Muhammad Shabir Khan (Thanamandi).

Engineer Rashid-led J&K Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) too has failed to make a meaningful impact in these elections. The AIP had fielded 44 candidates but only one of them Khurshid Ahmed Sheikh who is a brother of En. Rashid could win. All the 24 former separatists including the members of Jamaat-e-Islami, J&K who had joined the fray as independents too failed to make a mark and even most of them have lost their deposits. Aijaz Guru, brother of Parliament attack convict, could receive only 129 votes in the Sopore constituency.