J&K Voters Snub Political Turncoats, BJP 'Allies'

Candidates who switched parties after the abrogation of Article 30 lost the elections

Mir Farhat

Srinagar:As the verdict for the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections was delivered in favour of the National Conference and Congress coalition, all candidates who switched parties following the repeal of Article 370 and allegedly viewed as shadows of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were rejected by the voters.

Almost all the turncoats who changed parties after August 5, 2019, lost the elections.

PDP candidate Basharat Bukhari, who changed three parties after the abrogation of Article 370, lost to Congress candidate Irfan Hafeez Lone from Wagoora-Kreeri of Baramulla assembly constituency. Lone was contesting his debut elections while Bukhari was a two-time legislator of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from the same seat.

Former deputy chief minister and one of the PDP founders, Muzaffar Hussain Baig, and his wife lost on both seats the couple fought. Baig was contesting from the Baramulla assembly constituency as an independent. He lost to his nephew and protege Javaid Baig by a huge margin of 16651 votes. The senior Baig's wife, Safina Baig, who is the chairperson of the District Development Council Baramulla, lost to Irfan Hafeez Lone by a huge margin of 15303. The Baig couple in the last six years changed two parties. First the PDP and then the Peoples Conference (PC) of Sajad Lone.

Former minister and general secretary of the Peoples Conference, Imran Ansari, lost from the Pattan assembly constituency of Baramulla. Ansair lost to a debutant NC candidate, Javaid Riyaz Bedar, a former police officer, by a margin of 603 votes. Imran started his political innings with the PDP and then, after the abrogation of Article 370, left the party and joined the PC.

Former Congress minister Taj Mohiddin lost to NC's debutant, Dr. Shafi Uri, who is the son of NC veteran Shafi Uri, by a big margin of 14000 votes, from the Uri assembly constituency of Baramulla. Taj switched over from Congress to join the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP), which was floated by former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad in 2022. Taj, however, left this party before the assembly elections and contested as an independent.

From the Gurez assembly constituency of Gurez, which falls on the Line of Control, Faqeer Muhammad Khan of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was defeated by the former legislator of the NC, Nazir Ahmad Khan (Gurezi), by a margin of 1132. Khan was with PDP, but later he switched to BJP in 2020 during the District Development Council (DDC) elections, and his son Ajaz Ahmad Khan was elected as DDC Gurez on a BJP ticket.

Former Congress legislator Usman Majeed lost to Congress candidate Nizamuddin Bhat from the Bandipora assembly constituency by a thin margin of 811 votes. Both Bhat and Majeed switched parties after August 5, 2019. Bhat changed three parties, while Usman changed one. Bhat started his political career with the Peoples Conference, but his electoral journey began with the PDP 2008 elections when he defeated Majeed in the assembly elections. In 2021, Bhat joined PC and left it after the parliamentary elections; he joined Congress days before filing nomination papers for Bandipora.

Majeed started his politics with the Awami National League, which was founded by counterinsurgent Kuka Parray in 1996. Majeed joined Congress and won the 2002 assembly elections from Bandipora. He left the party in 2020 to found Apni Party with business magnate Altaf Bukhari. Later, he left the party after parliamentary polls and contested as an independent against Bhat. However, Bhat is an exception in these elections, as he is the only turncoat who won the election, as contesting on the NC-Congress alliance ticket became his rescue factor.

Former minister and one of the founders of PDP, Ghulam Hassan Mir lost his second elections in a row since 2014. Mir lost to former bureaucrat Farooq Shah of NC from the Gulmarg assembly constituency. Mir left the PDP before 2014 and founded his political outfit, the Democratic Party Nationalist (DPN). But he merged his party with the Apni Party and became among its founders. In 2014, Mir lost to PDP's Abbas Wani, who was a debutant in politics. In this election, he lost to debutant Shah by a margin of 4191 votes.

Former minister Hakeem Yassen lost the Khansahib seat of Budgam against NC's Saif u Din Bhat. Yaseen was a four-time legislator from Khansahib and was also a minister in the PDP-Congress coalition in 2002-2008.

On his second defeat from Gulmarg, Ghulam Hassan Mir said that in the assembly elections, there was an "undercurrent of NC," which became a factor of loss for many candidates.

"If we had allegations of being a BJP team, why would the PDP lose the elections? We have got a good vote share, which is a good running factor of our party; this vote share will keep our party (the Apni Party) in existence," Mir told ETV Bharat.

Apni Party president Altaf Bukhari, who lost his first election from Chanapora assembly constituency of Srinagar to NC's debutant Mushtaq Guroo, said his party is not wiped out of the political scene of Jammu and Kashmir.

"We accept the people's verdict and wish best to the government, hoping that it will resolve the issues of the people. The assembly election verdict was against an amalgamation of many factors that cropped up in the last ten years," Bukhari told ETV Bharat.

He said that people in the Kashmir valley "wanted their people to rule them," so they gave a verdict in favour of the National Conference.

Political analysts said that the results of the assembly elections is a message from the people of the Kashmir valley against the politics of the last ten years.

"People were clear in their minds and made a conscious choice of supporting the National Conference as they believe the party represents their sentiment and provides an alternative to post-August 5 politics," Noor Ahmad Baba, political analyst and former professor of political science at the University of Kashmir, told ETV Bharat.

About the turncoats and parties like Apni Party failing to open accounts from Kashmir, Baba said that "some of these people were believed to be possibly close to BJP and plausible candidates for BJP in case of a hung verdict where BJP could need their numbers.".

Two rebels of NC Irfan Shah and Dr. Ghulam Nabi Bhat also lost their elections from the assembly constituency of Central Shalteng of Srinagar and the Tral assembly constituency of Pulwama district. Both these leaders had left the NC when they were denied the ticket, and the NC shared these two seats with Congress in the seat-sharing arrangement of the INDI alliance.

Besides these turncoats and purported BJP teams, PC managed to retain the Handwara assembly segment, where PC president Sajad Lone won by a narrow margin of 448 votes against his rival Choudhary Ramzan of NC. This is the second win for Lone in elections after he jumped into mainstream politics from separatism.