In the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) led Union Government had granted the Scheduled Tribe status to the Pahari community hoping to reap rich political dividends.
Scrutiny of the Assembly segment-wise poll results revealed the gamble didn't pay off on ground zero.
Jammu and Kashmir APNI party candidate, Zaffar Iqbal Manhas, supported by the Bharatiya Janta Party, could garner around 18 percent of the total valid votes polled across the seven assembly segments of Rajouri and Poonch in the Anantnag-Rajouri parliamentary constituency.
Manhas polled 92521 votes from Rajouri and Poonch and 49674 from 11 Assembly segments of South Kashmir. He polled 142195 votes (18.14 %) of the total valid votes of 1019925.
PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti performed badly as well. Mufti gathered little over 17 percent valid votes from the seven Assembly segments of the twin border districts. She polled 88459 votes from Rajouri-Poonch and 151583 from the Kashmir valley.
Jammu and Kashmir National Conference candidate Mian Altaf Ahmad, a tall Gujjar leader turned out to be the biggest beneficiary of the Pahari community voters as he garnered around 58 percent of the total valid votes polled.
Mian Altaf Ahmad polled 300043 votes from the seven assembly segments and 221793 from the 11 assembly segments of the South Kashmir Parliamentary constituency.
Out of 1816371 votes, as many as 7,29,830 voters were distributed across seven assembly segments of Rajouri and Poonch districts. However, the remaining 10,86, 541 voters were distributed across the eleven constituencies of three districts—Shopian, Kulgam, and Anantnag of South Kashmir.
Approximately 60 percent of 7,29,830 voters in Rajouri and Poonch districts belong to the Pahari community while the remaining 40 percent are Gujjar and Bakerwal community votes.
When the BJP high command decided against fielding their party candidates from any of the three seats across Kashmir valley the decision was taken to support the candidature of a like-minded political party in the fray.
During the entire poll campaign on the Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat, the BJP leaders openly sought votes for a Pahari leader Zaffar Iqbal Manhas of the Jammu and Kashmir APNI party.
