In first Lok Sabha election post Article 370 scrapping, BJP not in the fray in 3 Kashmir seats | Explained in 5 points

The (BJP) has not fielded any candidate in three Lok Sabha seats of for the first time in about three decades. These seats – Srinagar, Baramulla and Anantnag-Rajouri – will vote in the next three phases. votes in the fourth phase on May 13.

The are the first general elections in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of of the Constitution in August 2019 by the BJP-ruled centre that stripped its special status. The government also downgraded the erstwhile state into two Union Territories – Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

There are five Lok Sabha seats in J&K – two in Jammu and three in Kashmir. The two seats of the Jammu division – Udhampur and Jammu – that voted in the first two phases had prominent BJP candidates in the fray. Union Minister contested from his seat in Udhampur while Member of Parliament Jugal Kishore Sharma sought re-election from the Jammu seat.

NC, PDP & BJP ‘proxies’

In the absence of the BJP candidates, the two regional parties of Kashmir – the J&K and the J&K (PDP) are pitted against each other in the three seats of Muslim-majority Kashmir.

There are other parties too – former separatist leader ’s J&K People’s Conference (PC), Altaf Bukhari’s J&K Apni Party and former chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP). But the NC and the PDP have called these parties ‘proxies’ fielded by the BJP.

Former chief minister , for example, is contesting from Baramulla seat where he is up against PDP’s Fayaz Mir and Sajjad Gani Lone, the PC chief. Abdullah has openly called Lone a BJP ‘proxy,’ a charge that the PC chief has denied.

Similarly, in , where former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti is up against NC’S Mian Altaf, Apni Party’s Zaffar Iqbal Manhas is being seen as a proxy