In this handout photograph released by the Jammu & Kashmir Information Department on October 23, 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) is greeted by Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah (R) as Jammu & Kashmir Governor N.N Vohra (C) looks on at Srinagar Airport in Srinagar. AFP The election commission's decision to go ahead with the assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir has opened up the most interesting line up. Like Maharashtra, which witnessed multi-cornered contests after long years of fights between coalition, the northernmost state of India will not see a single alliance. The ruling combination of Congress and national conference have decided to go alone after ruling the state for six years. Earlier the People's Democratic Party and Congress had shared chief ministership for three years each, with Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and Ghulam Nabi Azad occupying the high office.
The Congress decided to go it alone as it felt Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had become very unpopular, and the relations between the two parties at the grass root level had deteriorated. The two parties did not do well in the Lok Sabha elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party which won three of the six Lok Sabha seats is gungho thinking that it would do the impossible in the multi religious state by riding on the Modi wave, which has engulfed north India this year. The BJP achieved a rare first by coming to power on its own in Haryana, and now is focussing on Mission Forty Five in Kashmir, that is taking forty five of the 88 seats in the state assembly.
The party is calculating that it would be able to sweep the seats in Jammu and Ladakh, and get at least a dozen seats in the Muslim dominated Kashmir valley. The party has insisted that Narendra Modi's appeal as a symbol of national unity and good governance would get it Muslim votes too. The BJP wants desperately to have its chief minister in Srinagar so that the Kashmir mission of Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, who founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh is completed. Mookherjee had a tragic death in Srinagar in 1953 when he was leading an agitation against special concessions given to Kashmir in the constitution.
However, the valley would witness a fierce contest among national conference, PDP and Congress with BJP adding the fourth wheel to the campaign chariot. However in the Jammu region, the national conference and PDP do not have much influence and the fight is more between Congress and BJP.
In Ladakh, the Congress, BJP and National Conference will lock horns. While national conference is projecting Omar Abdullah as its chief ministerial candidate, the PDP is now projecting Mehbooba Mufti, the daughter of Mufti Mohammed Syed. the Congress and BJP are not projecting any chief ministerial candidate.
The separatist groups in Kashmir are expected to repeat their call for boycott of elections, as they have done over the last several elections. Apart from the issue of separate identity, they want the people in the valley to protest against inadequate flood relief measures. But the major parties would do their best to bring out the voters and it would be an interesting tussle in every one of the five phases of polling.
Tailpiece: The BJP and Aam Aadmi Party would be fighting it out in Delhi where the commission has announced by-elections for three assembly seats vacated by newly elected BJP members, even as the fate of the suspended assembly hangs in balance.
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