Mission 44+ begins: Party searching for development-orientednationalist candidates
The BJP is trying to identify “mainstream” candidates in the Kashmir valley in the run up to Assembly polls later this year and widening its public contacts.
“Kashmir ki fiza badal rahin hai”, said a senior BJP office-bearer who has been regularly visiting the State, specifically the valley, and meeting Kashmiri delegations to elicit their views.
With the ‘Mission 44+’ (half-way seats in the Assembly) as a target, the process of selection of candidates have been set in motion by the BJP central leadership.
The BJP has 11 seats in the 87-member J&K Assembly. Jammu has 37, Kashmir valley 46 and ladakh 4 seats.
On who could be described as being part of “mainstream” in Kashmir, the senior BJP functionary said there was a sizeable section in the State who trust that “development” should be the focus of the State politics. He claimed that with the Modi-Government at the Centre, youth in Kashmir wants to move out of the circle of exploitative politics” and “join the mainstream”.
Placing BJP J&K in his “top priorities”, BJP president Amit Shah recently addressed a public rally at Kathua in Jammu. The BJP has been increasingly focusing on ladakh as is “evident” by Modi’s visit to the region on August 13. Prior to the PM’s visit, BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, a Shia leader, camped there for three days.
“Ninety per cent of populace in Kargil are Shias and the welcome to the Prime Minister was beyond expectations,” Naqvi said adding around 50 per cent people in ladakh are Shia Muslim with other half being Budhists.
In an effort to gain ground in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley, the party has been working hard to win over “potential mainstream Muslim leaders”.
Towards this end, BJP national general secretary and Rajya Sabha member JP Nadda had last month met Peoples Conference Chairman Sajjad Gani lone, who has a strong base in North Kashmir’s Kupwara district.
Nadda had a one-on-one meeting with lone, who has been voicing a political tune different from Omar Abdullah’s National Conference, Mehbooba Mufti’s Peoples Democratic Party, and separatist Hurriyat Conference. lone’s father Abdul Ghani lone was shot dead in 2002. His brother Bilal Gani lone, who now does not see eye to eye with his brother, is an executive member of moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
Recently, Heena Bhat, a daughter of former Member of Parliament and senior politician Muhammad Shafi Bhat, joined the BJP. Former Inspector General of Police Farooq Khan too joined the BJP in March in the presence of the PM.
Sources in the BJP, however, have not indicated any possibility of “an alliance yet” with lone who is also being wooed by the PDP.
“There is always a distance between the cup and the lip and a slip is to be avoided,” said a BJP leader. Rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits, who according to BJP leaders, “never snapped ties” with the valley, “would not be a problem” once the political environment changes after the Assembly polls.
The political strategy of the BJP in Kashmir has been re-worked against the backdrop of the BJP’s high-powered panel report on Kashmir submitted to the party president in 2012. The report had observed that political establishments in J&K, since 1947, have never encouraged “nationalist forces” especially among Kashmiri Muslims.
The panel, headed by former BJP president Rajnath Singh and comprising party leaders Ravi Shankar Prasad, Shahnawaz Hussain, JP Nadda, Maya Singh and SK Jain, held interactions with 173 delegations from all sections of society of J&K and came to the conclusion that the majority of the population in the State wanted to live with India and there was a need to address grievances of “nationalist forces rather than appease secessionists.”
The report was forwarded to then party president Nitin Gadkari and later submitted to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The panel also suggested that external aspects of the “Kashmir problem” could be solved only by implementing the resolution of Parliament, which was passed on February 22, 1994, to liberate part of Kashmir from the illegal occupation of Pakistan.
The party also supported Union Territory (UT) status for the ladakh region and maintained that the Shiite-dominated Kargil area of ladakh was being discriminated by the successive State Governments.