NC-Congress alliance might be at a disadvantage in Kashmir, while BJP aims to benefit from Hindu-majority seats.
New Delhi: With the conclusion of Kashmir leg of elections which has 47 Assembly seats, the National Conference top leadership led by Farooq Abdullah, are seen to be less confident of winning the Assembly elections on its own with its pre-poll alliance partner Congress. Several leaders at the top suggest that the alliance will fall short of majority.
According to the assessment of several experts, the alliance partners Congress and NC could lose at least 10 seats in the Kashmir Valley where Sheikh Abdul Rashid (popularly known as Engineer Rashid) has created a stir and could take around half and dozen Assembly seats. Another party that has the potential to take around half a dozen seats in the Valley is People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Apart from the major parties, Sajad Lone’s People’s Conference and Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Party are both pursuing to win two seats each.
A political analyst said, “Lone and Bukhari’s party are suffering in the Valley. They are not getting the kind of support that they had expected to get. They don’t have much presence as well. Now they will both try to get couple of seats each, beyond the two seats. There is not enough space for them to win more than that.”
Therefore, to form the government, Jammu holds key for the victory of alliance (48 seats being the majority mark), the region where BJP has been strong. In 2014, The saffron camp had won around 70% of the Assembly seats tallying around 25 seats out of the then 37 Assembly seats in the Jammu division.
A political analyst said, “Back then, there were some seats where BJP lost because of the Hindus being in minority. But now, they have changed the contours of several Assemblies. Those constituencies where the Hindu population was in minority have been completely made Muslim seats. And the Hindus have been integrated with several seats to make them Hindu majority seats. As a result, the seats that BJP previously lost due to being Muslim-majority are unlikely to see a different outcome. But the additional six seats created from the Jammu division, which are predominantly Hindu constituencies, are likely to favour BJP, giving the party a strong chance of winning them.”
However, it will not be an easy access for BJP as well. The saffron camp is facing anti-incumbency in Jammu division which can by default, help the Congress party win more than a dozen seats. According to Congress leaders, the grand old party doesn’t have substantial cadre in Jammu division to fight BJP on their level, but if the narrative of the party works, it can help the party level up to the numbers enough for the formation of the government.
In addition to that, out of the 36 Assembly constituencies that come under the two Lok Sabha constituencies of Jammu division, Udhampur and Jammu, BJP was able to gain lead on 29 Assembly segments subsequently winning both the parliamentary seats.
However, for the saffron camp, the cause of concern has been a steep decline in the vote percentage which had hit rock bottom in the recently held Lok Sabha elections. In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP had pocketed around 47% votes and in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the voting percentage had dropped to just around 24%.