Eye on Assembly polls, eager not to blunt Art 370 narrative, wary BJP keeps out of Kashmir

The list of political parties which have approached the Election Commission seeking deferment of polls in Kashmir’s Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat, 10 days before it votes on May 7, includes the BJP.

The other three are the J&K Apni Party, the People’s Conference and the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP).

At a time when the BJP is not contesting any of the three seats in Kashmir, after a build-up that included a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March (his first to Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370), the development deepens confusion over the party’s plans in the Valley.

On April 16, speaking in Jammu’s Reasi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah first indicated that the party might not contest in Kashmir when he said the BJP is “not in a hurry to see the lotus bloom in the Valley”. He went on to urge voters not to back National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or Congress candidates.

“We are not going to ‘conquer’ Kashmir as projected by our adversaries. We want to win every heart in Kashmir,” Shah said.

The BJP’s decision followed the failure of the INDIA bloc parties NC and PDP to come to an agreement in the Valley. In Jammu, both the NC and PDP are backing the Congress.

This means that Kashmir’s mainstream political parties are now pitted against each other in the Valley. While it is expected to be a direct fight between the NC and PDP in Srinagar and in Anantnag-Rajouri (from where PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti is contesting), in Baramulla, the NC’s Omar Abdullah is facing Peoples Conference’s leader Sajad Lone.

Sources in the BJP say that this serves the party well, both in deepening the fault lines between the NC and PDP as well as preparing the ground for it for the Assembly elections, which