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On August 15, the Srinagar office of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) celebrated Independence Day. The national flag was hoisted with all solemnity. The ceremony was somewhat marred by the fact that it had been hoisted upside down. Someone noticed this and it was quickly brought down and re-hoisted. A mistake was made and it was discovered in time. That should tell us something.
BJP leaders claim their office in Srinagar, deserted until a month ago but for two to three office assistants, is buzzing with activity today. "The number of people keen to contest elections in the Valley on a BJP ticket has surprised us. We have received dozens of applications for each seat," says a middle-rung BJP leader.
This is nothing short of incredible. The Jammu region has an active BJP set-up - many would say too active, because till recently, the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) units were at each other's throat. In comparison to this, BJP in the Valley hardly had a presence.
But now, BJP is not only counting on the Hindus of Jammu, but it is also wooing Muslims in the Valley. There were 11 Muslim candidates in the party's first list of 45. In the 2008 assembly elections, BJP won 11 assembly seats riding on the Amarnath land row. That was its best ever performance in an assembly election.
It improved its show in this year's Lok Sabha elections, when it registered higher votes in 24 of the 37 assembly segments in the two parliamentary constituencies of Udhampur-Doda and Jammu-Poonch. It secured three of the six seats in the state - winning both the seats in Jammu and the lone seat in the Ladakh region. The party also led with a vote share of 32.65 per cent.
How and why?
Ram Madhav, partyman in charge of Jammu and Kashmir, has spent weeks in the state in recent months. Madhav, an old hand on Kashmir, was instrumental in Kashmiri leader Sajjad Lone meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week. He has also said the prime minister's doors were open to all separatists willing to join the national mainstream.
Madhav is confident that BJP will do well, not just in Jammu and Ladakh but also in at least half a dozen seats in the Kashmir Valley. BJP has focused on seats like Amira Kadal and Habbakadal in Srinagar, Sopore in Baramulla, and Anantnag and Tral in southern Kashmir.
| Meet the BJP in Kashmir |
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Hina Bhat: A dentist by profession, she is the daughter of veteran politician Mohammad Shafi Bhat who had won the Amira Kadal seat in 1996 on National Conference ticket, and then in 2002 on Congress ticket. She was expected to join the Congress earlier but moved to BJP after she was denied the Amira Kadal seat. She wishes to be an agent of change, campaigns with half a dozen armed guards in tow and says she will never let BJP make changes in Article 370, which defines Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status and which BJP has sworn to change. Sofi Yousuf: He has been associated with BJP for so long that he is counted as a founder member of the party’s Kashmir unit. He did not abandon his party even in the 1990s at the height of militant activity. Sofi contested from Pahalgam in the 2008 assembly elections. He was one of those who organised Narendra Modi’s "Lalkaar" rally in Jammu in December 2013 when, for the first time, around 4,000 Muslims from the Valley attended a BJP function. Fayaz Ahmad Bhat: He contested the Lok Sabha elections as BJP’s candidate from Srinagar. This was immediately after the party’s official candidate, Arif Majid Pampori, pulled out of the race, citing differences with the BJP on the issue of Article 370. Pampori said, “I had asked BJP President Rajnath Singh not to include issues like abrogation of Article 370, Ram Mandir and a uniform civil code in the party's manifesto as these are issues that are highly sensitive for Muslims of the country in general and those of Jammu and Kashmir in particular. However, my advice was ignored.” Bhat’s views on Article 370 are not known. Mushtaq Ahmad Malik (Noorabadi): A businessman and hotelier, he has been associated with BJP since 1996 and hails from Damhal, Hanjipora, in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district. He was the party’s candidate in the Lok Sabha elections from Anantnag. Thupstan Chhewang: He has served two terms in Parliament as a BJP MP from Ladakh, which he currently represents. He was at the forefront of the movement to ensure union territory status for Ladakh (which was opposed by the Muslims of Kargil district). He has been chief executive councillor of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, Leh. Chhewang is one of the most popular leaders among the Buddhists of Ladakh, not the least because Prime Minister Narendra Modi defers to him, but also because of his uncle, Kushok Bakula Rimpoche, who was a popular Buddhist leader. Jitendra Singh: A doctor related to the family of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Singh is minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office and an MP from Udhampur. He was very active during the floods and is one of the most visible faces of the party in the state. He courted controversy by raising the issue of Article 370 during the visit of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which was interpreted by many as muscle-flexing by BJP. |
The party has been asking nearly 60,000 Kashmiri Pandits who stay in Delhi, Noida and Ghaziabad and who had moved out of Kashmir before the cut-off date of November 1990, to enroll as voters for the assembly elections. The Election Commission is likely to set up polling booths in Delhi and its vicinity to enable these Kashmiri Pandits to exercise their franchise. BJP's assessment is that the usual poll boycott call by separatists would reduce the voter turnout to 10-12 per cent, and that is where Kashmiri Pandit votes could be crucial. If Kashmiri Pandits, even those who are not residing in Kashmir, vote in large numbers, in an overall low turnout, a miraculous victory for the BJP candidate would prove a point.
BJP also hopes to gain from the work done by RSS's Sewa Bharti unit in Kashmir during the recent floods. Modi visited the Valley twice during the floods. No longer is the focus on Article 370. Now it is all about sharing the good governance dividend.
The seeds of BJP's emergence in the Valley were sown when Modi addressed the 'Lalkaar' rally in Jammu in 2013. Parsing and analysing the speech he made, academic Rekha Chowdhary says in an article: "Insaaniyat (humanity), jamhooriyat (democracy) and Kashmiriyat (Kashmiri-ness) were cited by Modi in his Lalkaar rally speech. It was harking back to Atal Bihari Vajpayee's prescription for Kashmir, especially after BJP had virtually disowned the peace process initiated by Vajpayee."
The party has already committed itself to giving union territory status to Ladakh in "six months", according to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. While this might be unrealistic, it is clear that the party is leaving no stone unturned to establish a presence in the Valley.
On Article 370, it will be interesting to see how BJP reconciles internal contradictions. But there is no doubt that there is unprecedented interest, eagerness and curiosity about BJP in a part of the world that was almost dogmatic in opposing it. For the BJP, this will be a pathbreaking election.
