NC & PDP still in Eid daze but BJP’s J&K poll pitch off to a start with delimitation

No major meeting has been held by NC or PDP after the Lok Sabha election, with no get-together held for the upcoming assembly polls either.

BJP workers during an election rally at Khanabal in Anantag district of south Kashmir earlier this year | Photo: ANI

Srinagar: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to have started its preparation for the Jammu & Kashmir assembly elections, scheduled for later this year, with talks of delimitation to bring Jammu politically on a par with Kashmir.

Meanwhile, by their own admission, rivals National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are yet to shake off the Eid-Ramzan fervour and get to the drawing board.

Sources in the NC and the PDP told ThePrint that no major meeting had been held after the Lok Sabha election, with no get-together held for the upcoming assembly polls either. Even so, they said that the BJP’s growing clout in the region was something that could no longer be ignored: In this year’s Lok Sabha election, the BJP emerged with 46.4 per cent of the voteshare in the state, losing all of Kashmir’s three seats but winning Jammu’s two.

After the 2014 assembly election, which threw up a fractured verdict, the PDP (28 of state’s 87 seats) forged an alliance with ideological opponent BJP (25 seats) to form a government in the state.

The government collapsed in June last year after the BJP withdrew support, but the latter’s strides in the state have made local parties aware that its support could not be precluded if the assembly election were to throw up a fractured mandate again.

Of the 87 assembly seats in the state, the Kashmir Valley has 46 seats, Jammu 37, and Ladakh four.

In the recent Lok Sabha election, the NC took the lead in 30 assembly segments in Kashmir’s three Lok Sabha constituencies: Translated to assembly election estimates, this leaves the NC 14 seats short of forming a government on its own. The BJP, meanwhile, took the lead in 27 assembly segments in Jammu and Ladakh.

The Congress managed to get a lead in 14 assembly segments, while the PDP was the leader in four.

‘BJP cannot be avoided’

A senior PDP leader told ThePrint that while the party had been punished by voters for forging alliance with the BJP in the state, there was a realisation among the people of Kashmir that “dealing with the BJP cannot be avoided”.

The PDP failed to win even one of the state’s six Lok Sabha constituencies this parliamentary election.

The PDP leader, however, expressed hope that his party will perform better in the assembly polls, saying “voting patterns” for the two elections are different.

“Assembly polls… are a local election and candidates will be judged on how they have performed in the past or what they will offer in the future,” he added.

Senior NC leader Nasir Aslam Wani said that while the party was yet to meet to discuss the assembly polls and its plan ahead, it was a given that J&K’s special status will continue to be the major issue for it in Kashmir.

Wani said infrastructure and development were areas where they would like to attack the BJP in Jammu, adding that not enough work had been done there by the Modi government in the last five years.

The Congress, meanwhile, held a core group meeting, but an executive meet supposed to be attended by senior leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ambika Soni was postponed owing to their “other commitments”.

Speaking to ThePrint, state Congress president G.A. Mir did not elaborate much on his party’s plan to counter the BJP but said the latter managed to win only by polarising voters, a “tactic that will fail in assembly polls”.

“The Pulwama attack, Balakot airstrikes became major talking points in the general elections but, in assembly polls, governance issues take the lead,” he said.

“People vote for issues and not candidates. No doubt national security is important but local issues also become deciding factors,” Mir said.

Sajad Lone of the Peoples Conference, a BJP ally, said the NC, which won Kashmir’s three Lok Sabha seats, and the PDP needed to wake up to their eroding support.

“While the NC has all the right to go to town to celebrate its victory, the truth is that for a party that used to win by a margin of lakhs in Kashmir, holding on to a seat by a margin of a few thousands only proves that massive erosion has taken place,” he told ThePrint.

“Same for the PDP, which lost in its bastion. It is very difficult to make a government without a Jammu-based party and people here need to understand that,” he added.

The delimitation question

The BJP’s political stance on issues such as Article 370, which grants the state special status, and Article 35A, which oversees the definition of its residents, is at odds with that of Valley-based players: While the former wants them gone, the PDP and the NC proclaim their sacredness to Kashmiris and the 1947 instrument of accession.

The BJP’s latest gambit has been the renewed talk of delimitation to bring Jammu on a par with Kashmir vis-a-vis seat count to address allegations of Hindu-majority Jammu’s stepmotherly treatment by players of the Muslim-majority Valley, which have led the state for much of its history.

While the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has denied that its new leader, Amit Shah, is prioritising the state’s proposed delimitation, the BJP’s state unit has given enough hints about their plans.

“The issue of delimitation is not a new one for the BJP. It was there in the agenda of alliance [with the PDP], where we had sought the establishment of a delimitation commission to delimit legislative assembly constituencies as required by law,” said J&K BJP general secretary Ashok Kaul.

“Unfortunately, that was not done, but it is never too late.We also realise that this is a time-consuming process and we are willing to wait to see how things unfold from here on,” he added.

Meanwhile, even if it becomes a poll issue, several questions remain over whether delimitation can be held at all.

Kashmir-based constitutional expert Zafar Shah pointed out that there is a freeze on delimitation in J&K and the rest of India until 2026, under amendments made to Section 47 of the J&K Constitution, and Articles 82 and 170 of the Constitution of India.

“The constitutional amendment cannot be effected by the J&K Governor when he is acting as the delegate of the President of India. He simply does not have the independent power to amend the J&K Constitution,” he said. “The only way he could have done so was by amending the Representation of the People Act. But that too would have worked only if there wasn’t a freeze on delimitation.”

J&K currently doesn’t have a legislature since it was dissolved in November 2018.

A similar view was taken by National Conference MP Justice Hasnain Masoodi (Retd).

“Delimitation at present can be undertaken only after amendment to Section 47 of the (J&K) Constitution. The amendment can be effected only by the elected legislature of the state with the requisite majority,” he added.

“The governor does not have the power to amend the Constitution and neither can Parliament, nor the President, amend the Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir in exercise of powers under Article 356 and 357 (dealing with central rule).”