The consolidation of the Hindu vote, and the RSS' helping hand, has proved crucial to the political fortunes of the BJP in J&K.
On the day we travelled to Bidhipura village in Jammu, abutting the border with Pakistan, we came across an RSS team led by Brigadier Suchet Singh (retd), the chief of its Jammu and Kashmir unit.
The RSS had come to inspect the damage caused to a home in the village by Pakistani shells in the recent conflict between the two countries, described by the Director General of the BSF as the 'worst since the 1971 war.'
The RSS is going door to door in affected villages, but insisted their role is not confined only to displays of empathy. Brigadier Singh told us that they are running camps for those displaced by the violence, an estimated 3000 people who live in villages close to the border.
We asked them whether their presence is linked to the BJP's ambitious campaign for the J&K Assembly elections in December, described in posters across Jammu as Mission 44, a reference to the halfway mark of the J&K Assembly. The BJP at the moment has 11 seats, all from the Jammu region.
He answered indirectly, saying that, "We support the right person. BJP we definitely support but we only said everybody must have his vote, he must cast his vote that is the main thing."
Earlier this week, BJP President Amit Shah was also at the migrant camps, where he criticised Chief Minister Omar Abdullah for his absence. "I want to ask Mr Abdullah," he said, "you have a government in Jammu & Kashmir. But did even a representative of your government go to meet these people? Did you go to meet them? And if you haven't gone then I want to ask you, is Jammu not a part of this state?"
At the same gathering, Jugal Kishore, the BJP MP from Jammu made a direct, polarising statement. "Till today, these PoK refugees have not even received the one-time settlement they were promised. And there is only one reason for this, and I will say this clearly, it is because they are Hindus and they support India. This is why this injustice is being done to them."
The reference is to the demographics of the border villages of Jammu, most of which, like Bidhipura, are home to Hindus who crossed over from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) during Partition, but also plays into the wider perception in (Hindu-dominated) Jammu that it is neglected in comparison to the (Muslim-dominated) Kashmir Valley.
The consolidation of the Hindu vote, and the RSS' helping hand, has proved crucial to the political fortunes of the BJP in a state where they have traditionally struggled to gain a foothold. The party's backing of the 2008 agitation for land for the Amarnath Shrine Board - a movement spearheaded by Brigadier Singh - drew widespread support in Jammu but was opposed by the Valley. In the assembly elections that followed, the BJP increased its tally from 1 seat to 11 seats, its best performance to date.
To get close to Mission 44, the BJP will need an even bigger consolidation to win most if not all the 37 seats in Jammu region. It is unclear at this stage if the current India-Pakistan conflict holds the same political potential.
In Bidhipura, after the RSS team left, villagers bitterly complained against what they called political tourism. One of them told us, "the RSS people just told you they are helping us. If you had gone to the shelter even two days ago, you wouldn't even have seen a rug on the floor. Nothing was done, neither by their party nor anyone else."
Bidhipura voted for the BJP in the last assembly elections, as well as in the recent Lok Sabha polls. This time, one of them told us, we are still making up our minds.
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