PDP president Mehbooba Mufti throughout an election rally for Lok Sabha polls, in Anantnag, on April 29, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI
The upcoming election of the Anantnag-Rajouri constituency on May 7 is the most-watched election in Jammu and Kashmir for its intrigues, suspense, and drama. Fast slipping into a posh Shakespearian political drama, the National Conference (NC) candidate Mian Altaf, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Mehbooba Mufti, and J&Okay Apni Party candidate Zaffar Manhas — who’s more likely to get assist from the absent political events like Bharatiya Janata Party and J&Okay Peoples Conference — is ready for a triangular contest in a seat layered with complicated voter demography, comprising Kashmiri speaking-voters, Gujjars, Bakerwals, and Paharis.
So far, the ballot narrative of the regional events, the NC and the PDP, has revolved across the BJP, a celebration not contesting from the seat up to now. Both the PDP and the NC accused the BJP of “assault on Kashmiri identity, special status, and natural resources”. However, the BJP is becoming a member of a number of political forces to hunt postponement of elections in Anantnag, citing issues over climate and voter accessibility as a result of present spell of rainfall. It retains the door ajar for the BJP and the get together’s re-entry can’t be dominated out in case the Election Commission of India (ECI) heeds the request.
In separate representations made to the ECI, BJP’s Ravinder Raina, J&Okay Peoples Conference’s Imran Reza Ansari, J&Okay Apni Party’s Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari, J&Okay Nationalist People’s Front, unbiased candidates like Mohammad Saleem Paray, Ali Mohammad Wani and Arsheed Ali Lone seeks deferment of election.
In truth, the day nominations for the seat have been closed, the BJP’s absence was intriguing for all. The Anantnag-Rajouri constituency was the one seat it believed as a gateway into the once-no-go space of the Kashmir valley. The saffron get together certainly focussed sharply and invested politically in a number of tribes of the Rajouri-Poonch area of the Pir Panjal Valley prior to now 5 years to reap electoral beneficial properties, particularly after it scrapped particular standing of J&Okay in 2019.
From granting Schedule Tribe (ST) standing to well-to-do Paharis within the face of protests by backward Gujjars and Bakerwals to sending first ever Gujjar chief Ghulam Ali Khatana to Rajya Sabha, the saffron get together attracted massive tribal leaders like Mushtaq Bukhari, Syed Muhammad Rafiq Shah, and Mohd. Ayub Pahalwan into the get together fold. The purpose apparently was to win the elections. Several BJP leaders from the Kashmir valley, in a joint letter to the get together excessive command in Delhi, pressed for fielding candidates from the Kashmir valley’s three seats. However, senior BJP chief and Union Home Minister Amit Shah silenced the demand, saying “the party is into winning the hearts of the people in Kashmir before the lotus will bloom there”.
In truth, the BJP confronted a political dilemma. There was a concern of polarisation and consolidation of Muslim votes. Also, the BJP’s acknowledged political objective in Kashmir stays to see a non-Abdullah and non-Mufti Member Parliament, particularly from Anantnag. It can solely be achieved by supporting different political gamers in Kashmir.
The constituency has additionally pitted former allies of the People’s Alliance for the Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), the NC, and the PDP, and the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc towards one another. The Gupkar alliance, shaped on August 4, 2019, would pledge to battle collectively for the restoration of the pre-August 5, 2019 place of J&Okay, looking for restoration of particular standing. However, the hardening place of the NC to retain the Anantnag seat pushed the PDP away from any electoral alliance throughout the INDIA bloc.
For Ms. Mufti, Anantnag is the hometown of the Muftis and the get together, as most of her leaders come from south Kashmir. The NC, alternatively, see time opportune to reclaim south Kashmir from the PDP, which noticed an exodus of leaders after 2019. Ms. Mufti’s picture and political future is at stake right here. The NC’s ballot prospects for upcoming Assembly polls additionally hinge on the seat.
Demography dynamic
The Anantnag-Rajouri can also be a newly carved out Parliament seat in J&Okay. In 2022, the J&Okay Delimitation Commission stitched collectively geographically disjointed areas of Rajouri and Poonch of the Pir Panjal valley and Anantnag-Shopian-Kulgam of the Kashmir valley. It recast the voter demographics.
In 2019, Anantnag had round 14 lakh voters, with 50% Kashmiri-speaking voters and 50 % tribals, together with Paharis and Gujjars. The delimitation train added 7.35 lakh voters from the Pir Panjal and gave an edge to tribals over Kashmiri-speaking voters. A majority of Gujjar, Bakerwal, and Pahari votes are from the Rajouri-Poonch belt. A small part of Kashmiri Pandits and Pahari Hindu can also be current right here. The constituency now has seven Assembly segments of Rajouri and Poonch, with 7.35 lakh voters, and 11 Assembly segments of Shopian, Kulgam, Pulwama, and Anantnag, with 10.94 lakh voters.
The voter demographics pressured the NC to area Mr. Altaf, a well-liked and well-respected Gujjar chief and religious guru, from central Kashmir’s Kangan space in Anantnag. Ms. Mufti too is reaching out to tribals and banks on the goodwill generated for her stand over the rape-and-murder of a Gujjar lady in 2018 and her avenue protests towards eviction of Gujjars and Bakerwals from forest land after 2019. J&Okay Apni Party candidate Manhas is a Pahari and banks on the assist from the BJP and allies just like the J&Okay Peoples Conference to shore up his numbers. Only a candidate with trans-regional enchantment can win the seat.