Opinion

BJP’s assertion that it will replicate Gujarat in Jammu and Kashmir shows it is living in a paradise of fools

The truth is that BJP has its support-based limited to only those constituencies in Jammu province, which are predominantly Hindu or where the Hindus are more numerous

Hari Om

December 10, 2022

The truth is that BJP has its support-based limited to only those constituencies in Jammu province, which are predominantly Hindu or where the Hindus are more numerous

BJP’s assertion on J&K and harsh reality

BJP created history of sorts in the Gujarat Assembly elections on December 9 by decimating the UK-founded and ultra-secular Congress and “anarchist” Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP. It won a whopping 158 seats in the 182-member house and got 53% of the total votes polled. The whole credit goes to PM Narendra Modi, HM Amit Shah, and the committed BJP cadres. In HP, the BJP defeated itself to restore the Congress rule. Congress won 40 out of 68 seats, BJP only 25 and the BJP’s rebel candidates won three seats. BJP got 43% of the total votes polled, as against the Congress’s vote share of 43.9%. As many as nine BJP rebel candidates upset the BJP applecart. BJP would have created history and replicated UP, Goa, and Uttrakhand in HP had it “intelligently” distributed tickets, notwithstanding the fact that Congress made Old Pension Scheme (OPS) a big poll issue and held out nine other very attractive promises. As for AAP, all of its candidates (67) forfeited their security deposit. It could get only a paltry 1% of the total votes polled.

The historic victory of BJP in Gujarat emboldened J&K BJP Parbhari and national general secretary Tarun Chug and J&K BJP chief Ravinder Raina to the extent that they, on December 10, declared in the party’s meeting at Jammu that BJP would replicate Gujarat in J&K and form the next government in J&K UT on its own strength. Clearly, they forgot that J&K is not Gujarat and that the nature of politics in Jammu is totally different from that of Kashmir.

Let me explain very briefly the contradictions between Jammu province and Kashmir and reflect on the J&K UT’s demographic profile and the J&K BJP’s electoral performance in the past. There is nothing whatsoever that is common between Kashmir and Jammu province. Kashmir is 100% Muslim. All the Kashmir-based parties, without any exception, are Muslim parties. Some of them are: the National Conference (NC) of Abdullahs, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of Muftis, the Congress of Sonia Gandhi, the Apni Party (JKAP) of Altaf Bukhari, People’s Conference (PC) of Sajad Lone and CPI-M of Mohd Yousuf Tarigami. All these outfits are rabidly anti-Indian Constitution and their demands range from greater autonomy to self-rule to Indo-Pak joint control over J&K, to mention only a few. Not one Kashmir-based outfit hails things Indian, barring money, scholarships, government jobs, contracts, and land. Contrarily, they at regular intervals talk about Pakistan, China, and OIC, thus indicating what they religiously stand for and work for. And this is not a new phenomenon; it’s a very old phenomenon.

As for the electorate in Kashmir, its attitude to India and things Indian is no different from that of Kashmir’s religio-political class. They are all ardent believers in the concept of special and separate status based on the score of religion. They have all along voted for the Kashmiri parties and they will not deviate from the path the Abdullahs, the Muftis, the Nehrus, and the Gandhis charted for them, come what may. Believe me, all the 47 Assembly seats will be won by these Kashmir parties and BJP will forfeit its security deposit as before. Their attitude to BJP is similar to their attitude to the Indian Constitution and things Indians, barring money, scholarships, government jobs, contracts, and land. Only a naive can claim that PM Narendra Modi has won the hearts and minds of the Kashmiri electorate. The Kashmiri leadership and its followers and supporters not only hate Indian Constitution, Indian laws, and Indian institutions, but they also consider Jammu province as their colony and the people of Jammu province as their subjects.

The whole point is that BJP is a Jammu province-based party. And a peep into its electoral history shows that it used to win a paltry one to four-five seats in Jammu province till 2002 and it was called a party of Jammu City’s “Kanak Mandi”. It was only in 2002 that it won eight seats, all predominantly Hindu. It improved its tally by three seats in 2008 because of the historic Amarnath Land Movement in Jammu which also led to the collapse of the Ghulam Nabi Azad-led coalition government. In 2014, it did create a history of sorts by winning 25 seats out of 37, all in Jammu and all Hindu-dominated. One factor that improved its poll prospects in the erstwhile Doda district of Jammu province was the division of Muslim votes as NC, PDP, and Congress contested the 2014 Assembly elections separately. BJP did win 25 seats, but its vote share fell by a whopping 10%. In the April-May Lok Sabha elections, BJP had got 32.5% of the total votes polled in J&K and it could get only 22% of votes in November-December 2014 Assembly elections.

It needs to be noted that the new Delimitation Commission has divided J&K UT into 90 territorial constituencies – 47 in Kashmir (all 100% Muslim) and 43 in Jammu. The number of Hindu-dominated constituencies in Jammu province is 30-32. The remaining constituencies are predominantly Muslim. The electoral history of Jammu province clearly suggests that not even one BJP candidate ever won from the Jammu province’s Muslim-dominated constituencies as the non-Hindu electorate consistently voted for the Kashmir-based, Kashmir-centric, and pro-special status parties. The prevailing political situation in the Muslim-dominated constituencies in Jammu province doesn’t indicate that the poll prospects of the BJP in these constituencies there have brightened even slightly.

There is a view that “Paharis” (read around 95% Pathowari Muslims) and Gujjars and Bakerwals (all non-Hindu) could vote this time for BJP as the delimitation commission reserved nine seats for the Scheduled Tribe (ST) Gujjars and Bakerwals and the Union HM Amit Shah promised ST status to Pathowaris. This view is as flawed and untenable as it is exaggerated by certain vested interests. There are potent and cogent reasons to believe that they will not vote for BJP and that the Muslim votes will be between NC, PDP, Congress, and the newly-founded Democratic Azad Party (DAP) of former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad.

The truth is that BJP has its support-based limited to only those constituencies in Jammu province, which are predominantly Hindu or where the Hindus are more numerous. And those who claim that “BJP will win 50+ seats as and when elections are held and form the next government on its own strength” or that “BJP will replicate Gujarat in J&K” are obviously living in a fool’s paradise or in a world of the past. The BJP think tanks and election experts in the party must sit up to make a proper assessment based on the realities they exist in Jammu province and Kashmir if they really mean business in this strategic part of the country. Not just this, they have also to persuade PM Modi and HM Shah to grant full state status to Jammu province given the fact that the elections in J&K UT, as and when held, will automatically mean retransfer of the state power to the Kashmiri parties. And, if all it happened, the results would be disastrous not only for Jammu province but also for the nation as a whole.

Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

[With Inputs from IANS]

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