With the election dates announced for Jammu & Kashmir, frantic political activity has begun in the state. This will be the first election after the abrogation of special status.
The founder of the J&K Apni Party has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while there are unconfirmed reports of Ghulam Nabi Azad making a gharwapsi to the Congress.
Can the opposition form a united bloc against the BJP, or will the National Conference (NC) and Congress at least continue with their Lok Sabha alliance in the state elections? Or, will all the four main parties go it alone? The answer to this question will determine the course of these elections.
In the last three polls in the state, no party secured a simple majority of its own. In 2002, the Congress and the People's Democratic Party (PDP) joined hands post-poll to form a government. In 2008, the Congress backed the National Conference in a post-poll arrangement. In 2014, the PDP and the BJP came together to provide a government for the people of J&K.
Multi-Cornered Battles
Quadrangular contests have made it tricky for any party to cross the halfway mark. The structure of the assembly is such that it makes it difficult for any party to win. Pre-delimitation, the Kashmir valley had 46, Jammu 37, and Ladakh four seats.
In Kashmir, which has a Muslim majority, the main contest is between the two regional parties: the Mufti family's PDP and the Abdullah family's NC. In Jammu, which has a Hindu majority, the main contest is between the two national parties, the Congress and the BJP.
Post-delimitation, the total assembly seats have increased from 87 to 90, with Kashmir having 47 (+1) and Jammu 43 seats (+6). The proportion of seats in Hindu-dominated Jammu has increased from 42.5% to 47.8% post-delimitation.
In the 2014 Vidhan Sabha elections, the PDP had won 28 seats with a 23% vote share, the NC got15 with 21% votes, the BJP 25 with 23% votes, and the Congress won 12 with 18% votes.
While the BJP almost doubled its vote share, the PDP gained 8% and the NC lost 2%. The BJP and the PDP gained largely at the expense of others (independents and smaller parties). While the BJP won 25 of the 37 seats on offer in Jammu, the PDP won 25 of the 46 seats in the Valley.
The BJP withdrew support from the government in June 2018. In the 2019 general elections, the NC and BJP won three seats each, with the former sweeping Kashmir and the latter winning in Jammu and Ladakh.
In August 2019, the Central government revoked the special status of Jammu & Kashmir. Parties in the Kashmir Valley, including the NC, PDP, and a few others, soon formed the Gupkar Alliance in response, demanding the restoration of Article 370.
The Recent Lok Sabha Elections
In the recently concluded general elections, the NC won two seats, the BJP got two, and an Independent candidate won one seat. Both ex-chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah lost the elections. The PDP's influence declined in the Lok Sabha as it couldn't win any seat and recorded just 8.5% vote share. The BJP didn't contest in the Kashmir valley and tactically backed Sajjad Lone's party, the People's Conference.
A section of the voters is looking for new parties or leadership, ideologies, and fresh perspectives, away from the traditional parties. There is confusion over the opposition alliance too. Though both the NC and Mehbooba Mufti's PDP are national allies of the Opposition INDIA bloc, their traditional turf rivalry in Jammu & Kashmir, particularly in the Valley, may prevent them from forming an alliance in the Assembly elections, just as they didn't in the recent Lok Sabha election.
Can There Be A United Opposition?
Despite Farooq Abdullah's statement that the National Conference would contest the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly elections alone, the Congress is pushing his party for a wider alliance for the assembly polls, stressing that the idea is to defeat the BJP and thus all like-minded forces should come together.
A united opposition could spell trouble for the BJP. The party hopes that the opposition will ultimately fail to stitch up an alliance. This will allow the BJP to sweep Jammu, while seats in the Kashmir valley will be split. It is thus backing proxies in the valley, such as Sajjad Lone.
But sweeping Jammu is not so easy. Here, a resurgent Congress emboldened after its national performance in the Lok Sabha elections could give the BJP a run for its money. Jammu also has many districts with a high Muslim population, such as Rajouri, Poonch, and Ramban. This is why the NC and the PDP have been winning a few seats from here, while the BJP has never won a seat in the Valley.
A very polarised election is on the cards. All eyes are on the voters of the state, who have delivered fractured mandates in all the recent elections -2002, 2008, and 2014. Will they deliver a clear mandate this time, or will post-poll arrangements again define this election? Only time will tell.
(Amitabh Tiwari is a political strategist and commentator. In his earlier avatar, he was a corporate and investment banker.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author