Congress Blinks in Jammu

As we head into the third and final phase of the election, the elections seem by and large evenly placed among the major political parties – although the NC and the BJP seem to have a distinct edge over others. More so, the BJP which operates in a less crowded electoral scene in Jammu division, with the Congress its only major competitor. However, unlike in the past, the Congress campaign in the region has been muted. It almost seems that the party is fighting to lose Jammu to the BJP.   

This already has the ally National Conference worried. The NC leader Omar Abdullah wants the Congress to focus more on Jammu to make up for the perceived lost ground in the region.   But it is already too late for that. Congress is fighting 32 seats in Jammu including four of the five friendly contests with the NC. It is contesting just nine seats in Kashmir Valley.  

But the party’s national heavy weights haven’t campaigned in the region as proactively as was needed. This is unlike the BJP, whose top leaders have descended on the region to hold rallies. They include from prime minister Narendra Modi on down to Union Home Minister Amit Shah to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, party national president J P Nadda, and the UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. 

On the contrary, Rahul Gandhi has addressed just five rallies in the region. He couldn’t attend the two planned rallies at Ramgarh and Chhamb on September 27, after his plane failed to take off from New Delhi due to bad weather.  This is likely to cost the party dearly. Now, on the last day before the final phase, it is next to impossible for the party to turn around the situation. 

One can only wonder why the Congress didn’t make Jammu the focus of its J&K campaign. More so, when Rahul Gandhi had received an overwhelming public response in Jammu and Kashmir during his Bharat Jodo Yatra in December 2022. In Kashmir Valley too, where the public participation in the yatra was the first such major political mobilization of people after the withdrawal of Article 370 in August 2019.

The yatra, without doubt, had reinvigorated the party’s rank and file in the union territory boosted further by the return of leaders who had joined the former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s newly floated Democratic Azad Party. At the time, Congress entered the former state with a proper political agenda: it sought statehood and Article 371  for J&K, a constitutional provision that protects jobs and land rights in regions such as Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and some areas of Assam, some areas of Karnataka-Hyderabad.  However, it has eschewed the mention of the latter pledge since then. The party now stresses  restoration of statehood, something that the BJP – which alone can do this under the circumstances –  also does, albeit, with a lesser accent. 

In the unlikely prospect of Jammu throwing up a surprise, the BJP could very well replicate its 2014 performance, may be even better it, and then go on to fish for the remaining seats in Kashmir Valley.  And given the state of the current political scene in the Valley, the remaining candidates could be easy pickings for it. 

Congress no-show in Jammu could also leave the another favourite party, the NC, in a tricky situation – that is, if it gets a majority of seats in the Valley and a few from Jammu region. It could also try to form a government with the support from smaller parties and the independents, but may be no match to the incentives the BJP can offer to the MLAs not committed to any party, and necessarily to an ideology. Besides, a government formed by keeping the BJP out will be up against the wrath and the might of the centre, and may face insurmountable odds in asserting its writ, whatever little of that has been left to exercise now, will most owers going to the Lieutenant Governor. 

Jammu thus holds the key to government formation and the Congress lackluster campaign has made the perpetuation of the existing  state of affairs inevitable. There’s, however, a small possibility that the Congress fortunes can still turn around. The past few years have witnessed the disaffection against the BJP’s policies growing in Jammu.  The region is also witnessing a degree of anxiety about the post-Article 370 state of affairs and for more or less similar reasons as in the Valley: loss of jobs, land and identity. People apprehend that their region would be the first destination for the eligible outsiders choosing to settle in J&K

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But as things stand, these apprehensions are not deep enough to cause people to protest publicly. Besides, in case of Jammu, the fears of a demographic change are being trumped by the expectation of development of the region and more importantly the anticipated shift of political power away from Kashmir Valley. In fact, under the current dispensation this shift has already happened. And with delimitation giving more Assembly seats to Jammu, this will also be inherited by the future democratic government. So, unlike Ladakh, Jammu has also many reasons to be happy with the BJP, and it may very well go with the party again.  But as of now, much like the Valley, Jammu is keeping its cards close to its chest. The outcome may turn out to be more mixed than is expected. 

Views expressed in the article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial stance of Kashmir Observer 

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