BJP on wobbly ground as voter rage unites Kashmir and Jammu ahead of polls

Murmurs of dissent in BJP ‘citadel’

There are portentous rumblings against the BJP in its citadel of Jammu and a yearning in Kashmir to avenge the humiliations that the saffron party had heaped on it after rendering Article 370 constitutionally impotent on August 5, 2019.

The burden of a chequered history and the differences in religious demography, coupled with the politics of self-preservation by nearly all stakeholders in this restive landscape, had, for decades, marked the electoral outcomes in Jammu and Kashmir. And, for decades, the BJP – and its earlier avatar, the Jana Sangh – had exploited these chinks to make electoral inroads into the erstwhile state that was downgraded to a Union territory following the reading down of Article 370.

Article 370 abrogation: Jammu elated, Kashmir numb

The BJP’s big success finally came in 2014 when the party bagged 25 of Hindu-majority Jammu region’s then 35 Assembly seats. The heavily fractured verdict of that election ultimately resulted in the unexpected alliance between the BJP and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which had secured 28 seats in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley, giving the former its first ever taste of power in India’s only Muslim-majority state. The rest, as they say, is history.

That the aftermath of the Narendra Modi government’s decision to water down Article 370, was vastly different in the Union territory’s two distinct regions, is well known. Jammu was elated, Kashmir was numb. The Centre was quick to make a slew of grand announcements – all projecting a bright future for the newly carved Union territory and implying belated justice to Hindus of Jammu region, who had for decades longed for political parity with the erstwhile state’s Kashmir-centric Muslim ruling elite; the Abdullahs of the National Conference and the PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti, in particular.

Brewing disgruntlement, sense of betrayal

But, rhetoric alone is rarely enough to keep a political party electorally buoyant – a fact that the BJP seems to be realising only now; less than a fortnight away from the first of Jammu and Kashmir’s three phases of polls.

If the Kashmiris were dismayed five years ago – by all accounts, they have now internalised the slight of being robbed for good of the protections Article 370 guaranteed – the residents of Jammu have begun to gauge the full extent of the BJP’s betrayal only recently.

A clear message from Jammu came during the recent Lok Sabha polls when, though the BJP managed to retain both constituencies of the region, it saw a huge dip in its vote share and victory margins. Even Modi’s confidant and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Jitendra Singh saw his 2019 lead of over 3.50 lakh votes shrink to just over 1.24 lakh this June.

Unfulfilled promises behind anger against BJP

The reasons for this swift erosion of the gains that the BJP had consolidated in Jammu over nearly six decades, almost entirely flow from the unfulfilled promises made by Modi since 2019. The ignominy of political disempowerment owing to a decade-long wait for exercising their franchise – a direct consequence of the Centre’s failure to pave way for elections in Jammu and Kashmir soon after it was downgraded to a Union territory – has united the Jammu and Kashmir regions. So has their shared sense of loss – economic, political, and social – due to the Centre’s failed policies, made worse by the tone-dead decisions of a ham-handed Union territory administration, led presently by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha.

While both regions are palpably angry over the Centre’s dilly-dallying over restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood – a key poll plank of all BJP rivals in this election – the frustration is greater in Jammu. Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah may keep assuring the electorate that restoring Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood is very much part of the BJP’s agenda, but their assurance no longer carries the heft it once did, especially among Jammu voters.

Grim employment situation

Five years ago, Jammu had fallen hook, line and sinker for the BJP’s assurance of getting constitutionally guaranteed protections of land and employment rights on the lines of neighbouring Himachal Pradesh. That assurance never hit the ground, nor did Modi’s promise of ushering in economic prosperity for Jammu, which now grapples with more crippling unemployment rates than those of five years ago.

The unemployment situation in the Kashmir region is grim too but, unlike Jammu, the Valley at least has tourism and allied services to fall back on. For Jammu, a constant source of economic succour was the age-old tradition of the annual ‘Durbar Move’, which dated back to the time when the Dogras ruled the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Economic price of halting Durbar Move

The Durbar Move saw the administration shifting to Jammu from Srinagar each year for six months when the Valley faced its harsh winters. This allowed Jammu residents not only easier access to the corridors of power, but also the fruits of heightened economic activity as the shift in the epicentre of political and bureaucratic power also meant more people coming into Jammu, staying in its hotels and buying from its markets.

Then one day, just as the Centre had blown Article 370 to smithereens, the Jammu and Kashmir LG decided that the Durbar Move was a wasteful administrative expense and a remnant of the monarchy that needed to be dispensed with. Like the abrogation of Article 370, the halt of the Durbar Move too was initially welcomed in Jammu as it came warped under the BJP’s politically emotive cloak of hyper-nationalism. Five years down, that euphoria has all but died down. It now lies buried under the considerable weight of economic deprivation that the decision has burdened Jammu with.

Growing pressure on BJP

The administration may have saved a few thousand crores in expense by ending the Durbar Move but it clearly did not evaluate, deliberately or otherwise, the economic price that Jammu residents would ultimately have to pay.

Predictably, Jammu wants the Durbar Move restored and the BJP finds itself handicapped against making this a poll promise while its rivals, the National Conference-Congress alliance and the PDP, milk the row. While it may surprise many in the BJP, the Kashmiris have no objection to reinstatement of the Durbar Move, since it is anchored in tradition; an emotive issue in polls but one that the saffron party understands only through its monochromatic prism of Hindutva.

What has united J&K against BJP?

The upcoming elections have united Jammu and Kashmir on the aspiration of political empowerment and economic prosperity while the BJP, due to its acts of omission and commission, had come to represent just the opposite in both regions of the Union territory.

The BJP may still hope to retain some of its bastions in Jammu because of weak rivals, particularly from the Congress. Although resentment and rebellion over ticket distribution have hit the saffron ranks hard, that may be the only solace that it gets in the upcoming polls.