PDP Electoral Chances In Kashmir Assembly Polls Bleak As Congress-NC Announce Pre-Poll Alliance

With the National Conference and Congress forming a pre-poll alliance, the chances of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winning the upcoming elections have further diminished. The party is facing a new internal revolt among its leaders and continues to be burdened by the negative perception of its 2014 alliance with the BJP, writes ETV Bharat's Mir Farhat Maqbool.

Srinagar:With the announcement of the pre-poll alliance by the National Conference and Congress, the Peoples Democratic Party's (PDP) chances of victory in the electoral battle have further dwindled as the party grapples with a fresh revolt by its leaders and the stigma of allying with BJP in 2014. National Conference and Congress decided to contest the 90 Assembly constituencies together in the Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory as per the INDIA alliance agreement, leaving PDP dithering solo in Kashmir Valley. The alliance will have a major challenge with the BJP on the 43 seats of the Jammu region segments, but might fare well in the 47 seats of the Kashmir Valley.

In the Kashmir Valley, 47 Assembly elections will have the NC-Congress alliance contesting against a weak PDP, hallowed Apni Party, Sajad Lone's Peoples Conference and some independents. While the NC and Congress were negotiating seat-sharing arrangements, NC presidents Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah were asked whether the PDP was considered for this alliance. Both leaders parried the questions, which indicated that PDP's inclusion was mere speculation.

Congress's new Jammu and Kashmir president Tariq Karra even didn't mention PDP when he was asked about it; he merely said "like-minded" parties. Sources in Congress said that the PDP was never in the loop and some rumours put as news were floated initially, but were put to rest when NC and Congress openly declared the alliance.

"The pre-poll alliance deliberations were going on between NC and Congress only. PDP was nowhere in the picture," a senior Congress leader, who is part of the seat-sharing talks, told ETV Bharat.

He said that the pre-poll alliance between the National Conference and Congress was done as per the INDIA alliance arrangement. "PDP contested the recent Parliament elections against our two candidates, who were fielded as INDIA alliance candidates, so how could we have talked with it for an alliance in Assembly elections," an NC leader told ETV Bharat.

He said that PDP since its formation in 1999 was the main political opponent of NC and kept it out of power twice in the last 25 years. "Why should we help in the regrouping of our main opponent, which is now grappling to survive after 2019? So, having a pre-poll alliance with our main opponent was totally out of consideration during Congress-NC negotiations," he said.

While the NC and Congress were having talks for the alliance, the PDP was the first party to declare its candidates for Assembly constituencies. So far the PDP has announced 31 constituencies incharges for the upcoming Assembly elections. Of these 31, only 14 are known faces in the PDP while the remaining 17 are all new faces, who joined the party after the announcement of the Assembly elections by the Election Commission of India. However, a silver lining for the party amid this revolt is that many of its old leaders are rejoining the party for tickets.

These announcements created a major revolt in the party as six prominent faces of the party left it in anger. Of them, a former legislator from Wachi Ajaz Mir, DDC member and spokesperson Dr Harbaksh Singh and PDP chief spokesperson Suhail Bukhari were known as among the loyalists, who stood with Mehbooba after August 5, 2019, when the party's 40 main leaders and hundreds of activists left and formed Apni Party led by a known businessman Altaf Bukhari.

Despite the post-August 5 exodus of its 40 leaders and the fresh revolt, PDP former minister Naeem Akhtar hopes that PDP will win seats and enter the new, disempowered Assembly.

"The PDP will emerge as a strong voice for the people in the Assembly, which will be disempowered, irrespective of how many of our candidates are elected. The moral reins of the Assembly will remain in our hands whether we will be in the government or the opposition," said Akhtar, who was a cabinet minister in the PDP-BJP coalition in 2015.

Political analysts said the "unholy" alliance of PDP with BJP after the 2014 Assembly elections results and not valuing the loyalty of leaders and workers have left PDP as the weakest party in the present political situation.

"The PDP continues to feel the aftershocks of its twin political suicides in 2015 and 2016 by stitching unholy alliances with the ideological antithetical BJP and then justifying civilian killings and pellet horror. Mehbooba Mufti losing back-to-back parliamentary elections as former chief minister should have sounded alarm bells in the party, but it continues to nurse delusions. That is why the PDP is at its weakest wicket in the current political landscape of J&K," senior journalist and author Gowhar Geelani told ETV Bharat.

Geelani said the revolt in the party ahead of elections is an earthquake for it whose aftershocks it will realise on vote counting day on October 4.

"Desertions and losing 12-15 winnable MLAs is a tremor, a political earthquake, which the PDP refuses to acknowledge. It doesn’t value loyalty and morality, but only sees short-term political gain," he said.

In the 2014 Assembly polls, PDP had won 28 seats from Kashmir's Poonch and Rajouri and formed the government with BJP, which had won 25 seats, and swept Jammu. In 2002 polls, the PDP had won 16 seats, but led the alliance with Congress.

"It will be a miracle if the PDP wins eight Assembly segments in the forthcoming elections," Geelani said predicting the dwindling of the party which is in "tatters."