By: Majid Maqbool
Upcoming local assembly elections in the Jammu and Kashmir region – the first in 10 years – are also the first since August 5, 2019, when the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government in New Delhi revoked the autonomous status of the former state and unilaterally downgraded it into two union territories. As such, the outcome will provide an insight into the larger public perception since the Muslim-majority region lost the self-rule it had been granted by Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.
The elections, scheduled to take place in three phases on September 18, 25, and October 1, mirror the wider national contest between the BJP and Congress, with the National Conference (NC), the oldest regional party, allying with Congress by jointly contesting under the INDIA block banner to keep the BJP at bay. Under the seat-sharing agreement between the two parties, NC will contest 51 seats while Congress will contest 32. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which has stayed away from the alliance, is expected to face a stiff challenge from the former members of Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) who are contesting four seats in southern Kashmir.
Jamaat’s participation marks a departure from their 30-year stand of boycotting elections. The organization was banned by the Indian government in February 2019 following a blast in the Pulwama district of south Kashmir in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force soldiers were killed. The central government had accused the party of providing ideological support to militant groups.
The state witnessed a combined voter turnout of 58.46 percent during separate Lok Sabha parliamentary elections held earlier this year – the highest voter turnout recorded in the past 35 years. The polls are being held following prolonged governor’s rule after the alliance between the local regional Peoples Democratic Party and the BJP, which had formed the government together, fell apart in 2018. In July the Indian Home Affairs Ministry amended rules to grant more administrative powers to the Lieutenant Governor, who is appointed from Delhi, giving him final authority over All India Services and senior bureaucracy in the Union Territory. Kashmir-based parties and political commentators have raised questions about these amendments that give more powers to the governor while diminishing the administrative powers of elected governments.
Lok Sabha MP Sheikh Abdul Rashid, the chief of Awami Ittehad Party (AIP), who was arrested in 2019, has been granted interim bail by a Delhi court until October 2 to campaign for his party candidates in the election fray. On September 11 he walked out of Tihar jail where he had been imprisoned for five years. Talking to reporters after coming out of the prison, he said he would fight against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Kashmir policy till his last breath while denying charges of being a “BJP proxy” leveled by both PDP and NC leadership in the valley. He said his party would field more than 35 candidates in the upcoming assembly elections.
“If the people were so happy about the abrogation of Article 370, why the government had to send hundreds of people to jail and why the BJP could not find even a single candidate of its own in Kashmir?,” Rashid asked while talking to reporters after his release from India’s Tihar jail. He condemned the government for revoking the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and reducing it to a union territory.
Previously, in June this year, Rashid defeated National Conference (NC) leader and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in the Lok Sabha elections with a margin of over 200,000 voters from north Kashmir’s Baramulla constituency. His release ahead of the elections is again expected to attract voters and disrupt the voter base of strong regional parties like NC and PDP. In the past, he has sought accountability for human rights violations carried out by government forces. The AIP manifesto has also called for a jail-free Kashmir and the repeal of stringent laws like the Public Safety Act (PSA) and UAPA which has the potential to attract a lot of voters in favor of the contesting party candidates.
“The elections are also significant given the missing link between the people and the bureaucracy and bureaucratic hegemony in the absence of an elected government for over a decade now,” said a Kashmir-based analyst, also a political science professor in a government-run university in Kashmir, wishing to remain anonymous. “This election is also significant as it will determine the future course of the center-state relations.” The formerly independent state, he says, needs an elected government given the pressing issues faced by the people, particularly unemployment, unaccountable bureaucracy, rising electricity bills, and lack of other public facilities and infrastructure development.
Regarding the U-turn by Jamaat members to participate in elections instead of boycotting, he sees it as a part of the process of “mainstreaming and democratizing of Jamaat” in Kashmir. He pointed out that there were many other serious issues before Jamaat like organization network, the issue of resources, workers network as many of its members were jailed since 2019 after it was declared as a banned organization by the Indian government.
“However, Jamaat’s entry will surely widen the electoral horizon in Kashmir and it will provide more choices to the people,” the analyst said, adding that if Jamaat candidates fail to win their seats, then the post-election scenario could be very tough for them as they will get more exposed among people. “This would mean sacrificing everything by contesting in these elections and then getting nothing in return which can further damage their credibility among people in Kashmir.”
Junaid Shafi, a political commentator and research scholar with an eye on Kashmir politics, said these elections mark a return to democratic processes and local governance after a lengthy period of unelected rule by New Delhi-appointed governors.
“These elections will also provide a platform for public input and accountability, potentially addressing pressing issues such as high unemployment, deteriorating infrastructure, impending ecological catastrophe, declining incomes, and escalating socio-economic crises in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said. The polls, he said, can create a “breathing space for expression of ideas” and will give a say to the millions of people about how their day-to-day life is being managed, thus creating some sort of accountability for the administration.
“Should the electorate favor parties that have opposed the August 5, 2019, decisions, it would suggest that the masses continue to prioritize the implications of these constitutional changes,” said Shafi. Conversely, he adds, if the BJP or its allied factions emerge victorious, it may indicate a shift in public focus towards immediate concerns of daily life and governance, “potentially signaling a diminishing emphasis on revocation of special status of the region by the Indian government.”
source : asiasentinel