National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah has been claiming that the BJP has “struck a deal” with some parties contesting the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections as well as with Independents, hoping to use their help to form the government in the Union territory.
From his family turf of Ganderbal, the former J&K Chief Minister is facing seven Independents while the nomination of a candidate from a little-known outfit called the Anarakshit Samaj Party was rejected.
Omar has questioned Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s “silence” on the Apni Party and People’s Conference, even while attacking other outfits, during his speech at the BJP’s manifesto launch recently in Jammu, and expressed surprise at jailed separatist leader (Sarjan Ahmad Wagay a.k.a Sarjan Barkati) filing nomination against him from the Ganderbal Assembly seat as an Independent, so soon after another jailed separatist leader (Engineer Rashid) had defeated him in the Lok Sabha polls.
“They want to target only one person — the National Conference candidate from Ganderbal,” Omar said at a rally on Saturday.
At 145, the number of Independents in the J&K Assembly elections for the first two phases for which nominations have closed is a whopping 44% of the total 330 nominees. This is a huge jump from 2014, the last time Assembly elections were held in J&K, when the total number of candidates in these constituencies was 278, and the number of Independents 87 (31%).
Before that, in 2008, 190 Independents fought in the constituencies going to polls in the first two phases, but even that time, they added up to only 37% of the 518 nominees in the fray.
Apart from the big share of Independents, what is new this time is the presence of at least two dozen little-known political outfits in the fray, many of them registered outside the Union territory.
The Anarakshit Samaj Party, registered in Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh, which defines its agenda as fighting against the caste system, has at least two candidates contesting.
One of its candidates, from the Channapora seat, is Mehraj Hilal Wani, who happens to be the son of the BJP candidate from the constituency, Hilal Ahmad Wani. The news that Congress-turned-BJP leader Hilal Ahmad was being picked for the seat had led to the resignation of the BJP’s Channapora president and his entire team of 40.
The Sampoorna Bharat Kranti Party is registered in Vikaspuri in New Delhi; while the National Loktantrik Party’s registered address is Kanpur in UP.
The “registered unrecognised” outfits, with addresses in J&K, include Garib or Poor Democratic Party; Aman Aur Shanti Tehreek-e-Jammu and Kashmir ; All Jammu and Kashmir Liberal Democratic Party ; National Democratic Party; Jammu and Kashmir All Alliance Democratic Party; and Jammu and Kashmir Nationalist People’s Front.
The Garib Democratic Party, founded last year, is registered in a remote village called Gujmar Basti in South Kashmir and one of its candidates contested from the Anantnag-Rajouri seat in the recent Lok Sabha elections, from where PDP president Mehbooba Mufti lost. The Garib Democratic Party’s candidate got around 2,700 votes.
The Aman Aur Shanti Tehreek-e-Jammu Kashmir is registered in south Kashmir’s Anantnag, and came up in 2019. The Nationalist People’s Front was founded by jailed separatist leader Nayeem Ahmad Khan’s brother Muneer Ahmad Khan, and is registered in Srinagar. The National Democratic Party is registered in Jammu.
According to senior PDP leader Naeem Akhtar, the presence of these little-known political parties was “impacting the credibility of the elections”. “This has been happening for some time. I think this is the fourth election this is happening – whosoever is sponsoring them. Suddenly, some political parties emerge, even national political parties like Ram Vilas Paswan’s Party and JD(U). People just don’t know who they are,” he told
“It was earlier done perhaps to increase the voter percentage. But now this is an overused tool, and people see through it,” Akhtar said, adding that it may even put people off, hurting the whole process.
Some of the political parties better known in other parts which are trying their luck are the Bhim Sena, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), Republic Party of India (Athawale), and Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (of Paswan). Bhim Army founder Chandrashekar Azad’s Aazad Samaj Party has opened up a membership drive, inviting people to join by filing an online form and paying Rs 20.
Azad had earlier told The Indian Express that J&K was part of the Aazad Samaj Party’s expansion plans.
Apart from these outfits, two other parties contesting the Assembly elections in J&K for the first time are Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Azad Progressive Party and Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Party. Both are seen in Kashmir as friendly towards the BJP, with Azad’s party going into the elections hamstrung due to the former Congress leader and ex-CM’s surprise decision to stay out of the campaign.
