Stage set for three-way tussle in Anantnag-Rajouri even as EC considers request to defer election
The election to the Anantnag-Rajouri seat on May 7 will be the most-watched election in Jammu and Kashmir for its intrigues, suspense, and drama.
Fast slipping into a complex political drama, the election will witness a triangular contest in the constituency layered with a complex voter demography, comprising Kashmiri speakers, Gujjars, Bakerwals, and Paharis.
National Conference (NC) candidate Mian Altaf, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Mehbooba Mufti, and J&K Apni Party candidate Zaar Manhas — who is likely to get support from the absent parties like the BJP and the J&K Peoples Conference — are the main contestants.
So far, the poll narrative of the NC and the PDP has revolved around the BJP, a party which is not contesting the seat. Both the PDP and the NC accused the BJP of “assault on Kashmiri identity, special status, and natural resources”.
However, the BJP is joining multiple political forces to seek postponement of elections in Anantnag, citing concerns over weather and voter accessibility due to the current spell of rainfall. It keeps the door ajar for the BJP, and the party’s re-entry cannot be ruled out in case the Election Commission (EC) heeds the request.
The Anantnag-Rajouri constituency is the only seat the BJP believes could be its gateway into the once-no-go area of the Kashmir Valley. The party has focused on several tribes of the RajouriPoonch region of the Pir Panjal Valley in the past ve years to reap electoral gains, especially after it scrapped the special status of J&K in 2019.
Several BJP leaders from the Kashmir valley, in a joint letter to the party high command, pressed for elding candidates from the three seats in Kashmir. However, Union Home Minister Amit Shah silenced the demand, saying “the party is into winning the hearts of the people in Kashmir before the lotus will bloom there”.
The BJP faces a political dilemma. There is fear of polarisation and consolidation of Muslim votes. Also, the BJP’s stated political goal in Kashmir remains to see a non-Abdullah and non-Mufti MP, especially from Anantnag. It can only be achieved by supporting other players in Kashmir.
The election has also pitted the NC and the PDP, former allies of the People’s Alliance for the Gupkar Declaration, against each other. The Gupkar alliance, formed on August 4, 2019, pledged to ght jointly for the restoration of the pre-August 5, 2019 position of J&K, seeking restoration of special status. However, the hardening position of the NC to retain the Anantnag seat pushed the PDP away from any electoral alliance within the INDIA bloc.
For Ms. Mufti, Anantnag is the hometown of the Muftis and the party, as most of her leaders come from south Kashmir. The NC, on the other hand, sees it as an opportune time to reclaim south Kashmir from the PDP, which saw an exodus of leaders after 2019. Ms. Mufti’s image and political future is at stake. The NC’s poll prospects for the upcoming Assembly polls also hinge on the seat.
Anantnag-Rajouri is a newly carved out constituency. In 2022, the J&K Delimitation Commission stitched together geographically disjointed regions of Rajouri and Poonch of the Pir Panjal valley and Anantnag-Shopian-Kulgam of the Kashmir Valley and recast the voter demographics.
This forced the NC to eld Mr. Altaf, a popular and well-respected Gujjar leader and spiritual guru, from Anantnag. Ms. Mufti too is reaching out to tribal people and banks on the goodwill generated for her stand over the rape and murder of a Gujjar girl in 2018 and her street protests against eviction of Gujjars and Bakerwals from forest land after 2019.
J&K Apni Party candidate Manhas is a Pahari and banks on the support from the BJP.