BJP can win the Assembly poll in J&K. At the very least, it will be a major force to reckon with in State politics
The spectacular victory of the BJP across the country after 10 years of Congress-led UPA Government's gross misrule, decimation of fake secular parties and installation of Mr Narendra Modi's Government at the Centre, have changed the political discourse in the country. It is only natural. For, no one had ever expected that the BJP would win 282 seats in the 543-member House on its own and 336 seats in alliance with its NDA partners.
Interestingly, the victory of the BJP at the national level has also impacted the political scene of Jammu & Kashmir, where the party created history by winning three out of six lok Sabha seats and getting more than 32 per cent of the total popular votes polled. The BJP swept the poll in Jammu and ladakh. The unpopular, corrupt and militant-friendly ruling coalition comprising the pro-autonomy National Conference and the politically and ideologically bankrupt Congress failed to open its account in the State. It happened for the first time in their electoral history. Their vote-share was also the lowest ever: The NC got less than 10 per cent votes and the Congress only 20 per cent. The 12-year old People's Democratic Party won all the three lok Sabha seats in Kashmir and also secured a little more than 20 per cent votes. The PDP is a votary of self-rule (read, a step short of complete independence and India-Pakistan joint control over the State).
The nature of the impact of the BJP's victory at the national level and in Jammu & Kashmir could be determined from the fact that the State BJP has adopted 44+ seats as its goal in the Assembly election due in a few months. J&K legislative Assembly has 87 seats. It was on June 15 that the BJP resolved to accomplish what it called ‘mission 44+' at its Bhaderwah meet.
The BJP alone can stem the rot in Kashmir, harmonise inter-regional relations, eliminate fissiparous tendencies in the valley, defeat the negative politics of the NC and the PDP, bring the people to national mainstream and hand down an administration that not only treats all the three regions and the people they house equally at all levels and in all spheres, but also addresses the issues facing the refugees and various other social groups, they also said.
Indeed, formation of the BJP Government in Jammu & Kashmir is the immediate need of the people and exigency of the time. Jammu & Kashmir is a sensitive border State. Both China and Pakistan have their evil eyes fixed on it. They are working in tandem to weaken the Indian position on our strategic northern frontiers, the lifeline of India, and establish their stranglehold over the very crucial Himalayas. It was a State that deserved a careful handling, but it was not to be — courtesy, the Nehruvian doctrine. Besides being a strategic State, Jammu & Kashmir is also the most mismanaged and corrupt State.
The fundamental question to be asked is: Can the BJP achieve its mission 44+IJ Political pundits say no. They say the BJP is seeking to achieve the unachievable. It's day-dreaming, they add. But they had said the same about the BJP when Mr Modi and Mr Rajnath Singh launched Mission 272+. The BJP can reach its goal. After all, it had led in 32 out of 37 Assembly constituencies in the 1998 and 1998 lok Sabha elections. It means the BJP has its support-base in Jammu province. It simply has to work hard and with a single-minded devotion to convert this support-base into votes and seats. In ladakh, the BJP can turn the tables on the Congress and the NC in three out of four seats.
In fact, the victory of the BJP in ladakh has changed the region's political scene to the extent that the bulk of people there is swinging behind it believing their identification with the party-in-power at the Centre will help them achieve their Union Territory-status goal. Of course, the situation in Kashmir is difficult for the BJP because of its peculiar demographic character.
However, the plus point for the BJP in the valley is that the NC and the Congress have become completely irrelevant and that there are large and important social groups in the valley like Gujjars and Bakerwals who could turn towards the BJP. Their grievance against the ruling coalition is that it has consistently scuttled their demand seeking political reservation in the Assembly.
All in all, it can be said that the BJP can create history in Jammu & Kashmir. In any case, the BJP will be a force to reckon with after the Assembly election and it will be in the larger national interest. There should be no doubt about it.
(The writer is former Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Jammu)