Politics

General elections 2024: Poll prospects of BJP, NC, Congress and PDP in J&K, Ladakh

The short point is that 2019 is likely to be replicated in 2024 by the electorate in the UT of J&K and UT of Ladakh

October 2, 2023

Battle 2024: BJP-led NDA vs. INDI Alliance

General elections in Bharat are just a little over six months away. The battle lines between the ruling BJP-led NDA and the INDI Alliance of disparate plus separatist outfits, which also are up in arms against each other in West Bengal, UP, Punjab, Delhi, MP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, and even Maharashtra, have already been drawn. The story of the INDI Alliance – National Conference (NC), Congress, and People Democratic Party (PDP) – in the Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh is no different.

BJP’s poll planks

The BJP has been claiming on a daily basis that it will win the general elections hands down for the third time in a row. Its oft-repeated claim: It will win more than 300 seats or repeat the 2019 performance. Its chief poll planks are abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A; complete integration of J&K and Ladakh into Bharat; Ram Mandir; national security, nation-centric and pro-active foreign policy; aggressive attitude towards Pakistan; Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon; highly successful New Delhi G20 meet; welfare schemes for women, the poor and the marginal farmers; infrastructure development on a massive scale across the nation; good economic health; 33 percent reservation for women in Lok Sabha and Assemblies; political stability; Hindutva; politics of appeasement and dynastic politics or politics of the family by the family and for the family, to mention only a few. And its trump card obviously is skillful, energetic, and an orator par excellence Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his very active and astute Home Minister Amit Shah.

INDI Alliance’s poll planks

The INDI Alliance’s major poll plank is Modi-bashing. They have been leaving no stone unturned to tarnish the PM’s image in and outside Bharat. The main anti-Modi campaigners are the frustrated and desperate Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Bannerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Lalu Yadav and all his family members, M K Stalin, Uddhav Thackeray and Nitish Kumar. They are using all kinds of invectives and epithets against PM Modi. Rahul Gandhi has been even touring foreign countries like US, UK, and France to create an impression that PM Modi has subverted all the institutions, including the judiciary and the Press, and established a sort of dictatorship; that the Muslims and Christians are unsafe in the country; and that the Modi government has been ill-treating and marginalizing Dalits, the OBCs and the tribal population. The other poll planks of the INDI Alliance are unemployment, the rising price of living, Adani, Ambani, and reservation for OBC women in the Lok Sabha and Assemblies. Besides, the INDI Alliance constituents like the Congress, the DMK, the SP, the RJD, and the AAP have unleashed a no-holds-barred propaganda blitz against Sanatan Dharma and the Sanatanis’ sacred scriptures like Ramcharitmanas, and in support of caste census. Not just this, the SP has unleashed a campaign against Brahmins and the RJD against Thakurs. The RJD also has been opposing women’s reservations and launched a vilification campaign against them using derogatory language. In addition, all the INDI Alliance constituents have been working overtime to unite the Muslims against PM Modi and create a schism in the Hindu society. They, in addition, have joined hands with those who want the Modi government to restore the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), which was abolished by the Congress-led UPA.

The fact of the matter is that the INDI Alliance constituents are all out to negate the work the social reformers and other friends and well-wishers of Bharat did in the nineteenth century, also called the century of renaissance. They believe once PM Modi is gone, the whole system again would be in their hands or in the hands of anti-Sanatan forces, which ruled the roost between 1947 and May 2014 and further destroyed Bharat socially, religiously, culturally, economically, and politically.

BJP in J&K, Ladakh

The BJP — which had held out a categorical commitment that it would scrap Article 370, end discrimination with Jammu, and grant UT status to Ladakh if voted to power at the Centre — had won both the Lok Sabha seats in Jammu province hands down both in the 2014 and 2019 general elections. The pro-autonomy NC of Kashmir-based Abdullahs and Sonia’s Congress suffered a humiliating defeat in Jammu both in 2014 and 2019 despite the fact that they had entered into a pre-poll alliance with the NC agreeing to contest all the three seats in Kashmir and the Congress two seats in Jammu. Even the Congress’s former J&K CM Ghulam Nabi Azad had to bite the dust in 2014 in Jammu. He lost to a greenhorn in politics.

The NC also suffered an ignominious defeat in all three seats in Kashmir in 2014 at the hands of the PDP. Even the NC president and former three-time J&K CM Farooq Abdullah lost the election to a little-known PDP candidate. The PDP had not entered into any kind of alliance either with the NC, its enemy number one, or with Congress. However, in 2019, the NC turned the tables in Kashmir and won all three seats. The PDP candidates, including Mehbooba Mufti, lost because the party had become very unpopular in Kashmir by entering into what was termed “an unholy alliance” with the BJP after the 2014 Assembly elections.

As for the trans-Himalayan Ladakh, the BJP candidate Thupstan Chhewang won the lone Ladakh seat in 2014 with a narrow margin of just 36 votes and Jamyang Tsering Namgyal won the seat in 2019 with a respectable margin of 10,930 votes. Two factors contributed to their success. One was the BJP’s UT promise and the other was that there were multiple candidates in the fray both in 2014 and 2019.

There are potent reasons to believe that the BJP would repeat its 2014 and 2019 performance both in Jammu and Ladakh. This, notwithstanding the fact that the BJP has lost its sheen and appeal in Jammu and the people here are fighting against toll plazas and smart electric meters and opposing the Kashmir-centric employment policy and that the Ladakhis, including the Buddhists, have been changing their goalpost at regular intervals.

The plus point for the BJP in Jammu is that an overwhelming majority of the Hindu population is bitterly opposed to the NC, the Congress, and the PDP. The reasons are not really difficult to fathom. And, in Ladakh, the plus point for the BJP is that the bulk of the Buddhist population still believes that the Modi government alone could meet their demands, including the demand seeking political status under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, and that the possibility of the Opposition fielding a common candidate against the BJP is too remote. Another plus point for the BJP is that it was none other than the Modi government which fulfilled the age-old demand of the Buddhists seeking separation of their region from Kashmir and UT status for it.

And, remember, the 2024 vote in Jammu and Ladakh will not be for the BJP in the real sense of the term; it will essentially be a vote for Narendra Modi and against the Congress, the NC, and the PDP as before. It is also important to note that for the Hindus of Jammu and Buddhists in Ladakh, it’s a question of their very survival.

Kashmir’s political scene

Notwithstanding the fact that the Congress, the NC, and the PDP are constituents of the INDI Alliance as well as constituents of the now almost defunct fundamentally separatist Gupkar Alliance, they are unlikely to contest the 2024 general elections jointly. The NC has made it loud and clear that it will field its candidates in all three Lok Sabha constituencies – Srinagar, Baramulla, and Anantnag-Poonch. Its stand is that it had won Srinagar, Baramulla, and Anantnag constituencies in 2019 and that INDI Alliance should field candidates only in those constituencies that returned to the Lok Sabha BJP candidates. In other words, it wants the Congress and the PDP to try their luck in Jammu and Ladakh.

On the other hand, the PDP wants to contest elections from the Anantnag-Poonch constituency and one of the two constituencies in Kashmir – Srinagar and Baramulla. Similarly, the Congress wants to contest from at least four constituencies – Kathua-Udhampur-Doda constituency, Jammu constituency, Ladakh Constituency, and Anantnag-Poonch constituency.

One doesn’t really know what the INDI Alliance will ultimately decide. But one thing appears clear: They will fight against each other in a number of constituencies and the NC would perform reasonably well as compared to the Congress and the PDP in terms of seats, as opposed to the number of votes. The situation is such. It’s advantageous NC in Kashmir because, unlike the PDP, it was the NC that quit the NDA during Vajpayee’s time. As for the PDP, it has been at the receiving end because it was the BJP that withdrew support to the Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government on June 18, 2018, and not the vice-versa. Had the PDP snapped its ties with the BJP, things in Kashmir would have been somewhat different and it would have won one or two seats in Kashmir.

Prospects of DPAP, JKAP

The story of the newly-founded Democratic Progressive Azad Party (PDAP) of Ghulam Nabi Azad would be no different from the story of the Congress and the PDP both in Jammu province and Kashmir Valley. The DPAP, like the J&K Apni Party (JKAP) of former minister and PDP ideologue Altaf Bukhari, is considered by the Muslims in Kashmir and Jammu as the “king’s party”, or B team of PM Modi. Both the DPAP and JKAP will come out of the electoral exercise in 2024 minus everything if at all they dared to test political waters in the UT of J&K.

Conclusion

The short point is that 2019 is likely to be replicated in 2024 by the electorate in the UT of J&K and UT of Ladakh. Let’s wait and see what ultimately happens.

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.

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