Now when the air has been tempered by election buzz, it is important to know why are we here? The people did not vote in the last Assembly elections, the results of which were declared in December 2014 and the House constituted in March 2015, for the elections to be held at least two years ahead of the schedule. The polls, going by the six-year-term of the Assembly should have been held in 2021.
There is nothing uncommon about the early elections in the State. The Assembly elected in June 1983 was dissolved in 1986 and the 1987 polls were held much ahead of the schedule. But the Assembly elected in 1987 was dissolved in February 1990 – this time the polls were delayed for more than six and a half years. That is the chequered history of the polls in Jammu and Kashmir.
Honestly, the situation today is the direct result what happened after the 2014 Assembly poll results were declared. It was a shocking repeat of the fractured mandate that the 2002 and 2008 polls had delivered, but the matrix was different and frightening: self-proclaimed ideologically poles apart political groups, PDP with 28 and BJP 28, emerged as the first and the runners up in the polls.
The idea behind their coming together was noble – to bring the two regions – Kashmir and Jammu region that had voted differently a highly polarized atmosphere where Kashmiri Muslims were fed on the fears of the Saffron party consuming them and Hindus were led to a belief that it was their first and last chance to assert themselves in the state politics and polity. That moral high ground was built on the presumed decent behavior of the two parties toward each other. But it was not to be, time proved it.
PDP’s most respected leader Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was cautioned about the consequences of his attempt to repeat the 1975 Sheikh – Indira accord of 1974, implying that a presumed militant friendly party was willing to shake hands with the saffron party to script a new chapter in the history of Kashmir from within the family.. His daughter and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti had put her foot down and opposed the BJP-PDP alliance. It was the kind of opposition that had its own thesis that the alliance for the development of the State would compromise the basic agenda of the PDP that stood for self-rule, which she had warned would become an empty slogan for the even the roads littered with gold would not be accepted by Kashmir where the grave yards of the ” young Kashmiris” have spurred a different sentiment , and moreover, such an alliance would be treated as a breach of the promises made to the people during the campaign. She, however, relented, before the wishes of her father whose political vision and wisdom she trusted as the last word in politics.
National Conference , the archrival of the PDP , had sent its emissaries and offered unconditional support to Mufti Sayeed to form the government. Congress’ Ghulam Nabi Azad , who had to quit the post of Chief Minister in July 2008 following the withdrawal of support by PDP to his Congress-PDP led coalition government, too had sent a strong signal that Mufti Sayeed should not enter into any alliance with the BJP, for no other reason but the frightening consequences that were in story for his party and the State as a whole.
BJP that has scored just 44,000 votes in the 46 Assembly seats in the Valley knew that Kashmiri voters have rejected it. To ensure that it gets foothold in the Valley by aligning with PDP was its desperation and goal. It was pursuing a single-minded goal that it should get into power in the State at any cost and then peddle its narrative in Kashmir. Power was the basic glue, as it wanted to add and count J&K as the state where it was ruling ( in alliance with other party). The arithmetic of the number of states being ruled by BJP, it seems was the real objective . The so-called Agenda of Alliance was nothing but a written deception.
This arrangement was destined to fail., and it did . This was not a velvet divorce, it ended with BJP using the triple talaq methodology via telephone to announce the political separation.
Against all this backdrop, what has happened is more important – the cheating of the 1987 Assembly polls traced as the cause of the armed militancy in Kashmir will stay there , but the aftermath of the 2014 polls spurred the rebellion of Kashmiri children is another gory chapter in the history of Kashmir. It is for the historians to judge who committed this blunder and what price Kashmir paid as a consequence.
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