What’s at stake in Jammu and Kashmir’s most desperately sought Assembly elections

Tomorrow, on September 18, Jammu and Kashmir will be voting for the first time in a decade to elect its own Assembly.

Its last government, which was elected in 2014, collapsed four years later, after the Bharatiya Janata Party, one of the ruling coalition partners with Peoples Democratic Party, withdrew its support.

Since then, the region has been under the direct rule of the central government. It was during President’s Rule in 2019 that the Narendra Modi government unilaterally scrapped Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and downgraded the erstwhile state into two Union territories.

The Supreme Court in December last year upheld the Centre’s decisions but also instructed it to hold elections in the region.

Critics have pointed out that the Union territory’s Assembly will have limited legislative competence since the Centre has pruned its powers drastically, with the Lieutenant Governor able to scuttle any law passed by the House.

Nevertheless, these can be described as the most desperately sought Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.

“We know this Assembly will not have much power,” argued Abdul Rashid, a fruit grower in south Kashmir’s Bijbehara town. “But what if our vote compels New Delhi to rethink its strategy and grant us statehood?”

Since August 2019, the region has been administered through a New Delhi-appointed Lieutenant Governor and an overarching bureaucracy whose policymaking has often drawn strong criticism from local political players – from summary dismissal of government employees to an iron-fist approach against political dissent.

A Srinagar-based political observer, who declined to be identified, said: “This election might actually give people a sense of power at local level after having been subjected to continuous disempowerment since 2019. This is precisely why New Delhi was dragging its feet on it.”

In the first of the three-phase elections on September 18, 24 seats – 16 in Kashmir Valley and 8 in Jammu – will go to the polls. Voting for two other phases will be held on September 25 and October 1.

The boycott constituency

Though there is discontent about the high rate of unemployment and other governance issues, the elections in the Valley are being contested on “identity, dignity and special status.”

Local regional parties like National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party have promised to fight for the restoration of special status and protecting Jammu and Kashmir’s identity. While the Congress has promised statehood to Jammu and Kashmir if it comes to power at the Centre, it has not said anything on bringing back Article 370.

The other side of the spectrum represents the Bharatiya Janata Party which has outrightly said that Article 370 is “history now”. The party is trying to woo voters on a host of developmental and welfarist measures.

Several separatist leaders and members of the banned socio-religious outfit Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir have decided to jump into electoral politics, marking a significant turnaround in the region’s political landscape.

The Jamaat-e-Islami members have agreed on a strategic alliance with Baramulla Member of Parliament Engineer Rashid’s Awami Ittehad Party on 35 seats in the Valley.

Rashid, who spent more than five years in jail and won the Lok Sabha elections from Baramulla in June, has been advocating for the release of hundreds of Kashmiri prisoners lodged in different jails of the country and Union territory.

While observers argue that the alliance may not cause a big impact on the verdict in Kashmir Valley, they are likely to attract a significant chunk of voters, who have been boycotting elections for more than three decades.

This is borne out by Rashid’s recent win in Baramulla, which reported a record-breaking 59% polling.

In the four Lok Sabha elections between 2004 and 2019, the voting percentage in Baramulla had hovered around 40%.

Political observers pointed out that Rashid, owing to his anti-Delhi political posturing and imprisonment, had been able to consolidate a huge section of the boycott constituency behind him. Out of the total 1 million plus votes cast in Baramulla, Rashid managed to secure nearly 5 lakh votes.

A similar turnout could shape the results in the Assembly elections too.

A profusion of independent candidates

None of the political parties is contesting on all 90 seats.

The National Conference and Congress announced a pre-poll alliance under which NC would contest on 51 seats while Congress got 32 seats. On five Assembly segments on which the two INDIA bloc partners could not reach a consensus, the two parties agreed to have what they called a “friendly contest”.

Still reeling from the aftermath of its decision to ally with BJP in 2014, the Peoples Democratic Party, which witnessed an exodus of most of its former elected members post 2019, is contesting on 81 seats.

While Bharatiya Janata Party is contesting on all 43 seats of Jammu division, the saffron party has kept its hopes in Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley modest – it’s contesting on only 19 of total 47 seats. According to party’s leaders, they are banking on some “independents” in the Valley if they need support to form the government.

Of the total 908 candidates in fray for the elections, more than 40% are contesting as independents. Local parties like National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party and Congress have alleged that the independents are being backed by BJP to fracture their vote share.

‘Nothing will change’

For many, the elections serve as an avenue to platform their anger. “I have never voted in my life but I might do so for the sake of many Kashmiri prisoners who are behind bars,” said Shabir Ahmad, a 28-year-old private employee in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district.

There are also those who are dejected by the way local regional mainstream parties like National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party have failed to put pressure on New Delhi to rethink its decision of August 5, 2019. “I cast my first vote in the 2020 elections to the district development councils because it was the first time all the parties had united against BJP. It gave a sense of unity,” explained Zubair Hajam, a resident of North Kashmir’s Bandipora district. “Those same parties are now fighting individually, not only against BJP but even against each other. This disunity helps the BJP.”

Others are simply sceptical of the process of elections itself. “I cast my vote in the Lok Sabha elections to see how this system works,” said a 26-year-old postgraduate man, who is preparing for his doctorate. “I voted for NOTA.”

According to him, the elections are unlikely to bring any major change in the lives of Kashmiris. The real power despite an elected government, he says, has always remained with New Delhi. “I don’t believe in this system. It’s irrelevant if I vote or not,” he said. “The separatists and organisations like Jamaat are contesting elections to secure their own freedom and survival.”

Message from Jammu

The elections will also act as a barometer for the Bharatiya Janata Party in its stronghold, Jammu.

In the 2014 elections, the saffron party had won 25 of the 37 seats in the division and went on to become the part of the state government for the first time.

A delimitation exercise in 2022 added six Assembly seats to Jammu division while only one seat was added from Kashmir Valley.

According to Opposition parties in Kashmir, the delimitation exercise had been carried out to benefit Bharatiya Janata Party as the new electoral cartography gave Hindus an edge in the Muslim-majority Union territory. After the delimitation, the total number of Assembly seats in Jammu rose to 43 from 37 while Kashmir's seats increased to 47.

The actual impact of the rearrangement will be clear after the results of the Assembly elections.

While the Hindu-majority areas of Jammu region had initially expressed jubilation over the scrapping of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, the Assembly elections will prove if the region continues to share the same excitement. “After 2019, Jammu’s local economy has suffered tremendously because the government has incentivised new industrial set-ups and given them a lot of subsidies,” an office-bearer of Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry said. “For the existing units, there’s very little help from the government.”

There’s also anger within the young in Jammu over the new reservation policy announced by the government.

In March, the Centre granted the million-strong Pahari speaking community in Jammu and Kashmir the status of a tribe and a 10 % reservation in jobs and education. This additional reservation was sliced away from the general pool of seats, triggering widespread anger among the general category population whose population is 70%, according to the 2011 census.

“It’s an issue that resonates with the youth in both Jammu as well as Kashmir Valley,” underlined Vinkal Sharma, a Jammu-based student activist.