Srinagar: Basking in the mild autumn sun at his Srinagar home, Sanjay Saraf is relaxed after unsuccessfully contesting the recently conducted Legislative Assembly in Jammu and Kashmir. It was the fourth consecutive election that he contested since his maiden foray into electoral politics in 2002. But all these 22 years, he has drawn a blank.
Saraf was contesting from Anantnag and Srinagar's Habba Kadal constituency which has a significant Kashmir Pandit electorate. Yet he could draw a mere 161 votes and 265 votes (1.38 per cent) from Habba Kadal this time, down from the previous 830 votes from the same seat in 2014. The winning National Conference candidate Shamim Firdous from that seat received 64.68 per cent votes (12390).
Barring Bharatiya Janata Party's Ashok Kumar Bhat who bagged 2899 votes, the two more Kashmiri Pandit candidates from the same seat Nanaji Dembi secured 65 votes and 97 by Ashok Shaib. The constituency is politically significant as it would elect and send a Kashmiri Pandit representative to the government until 2008.
Raman Mattoo, who was elected as an independent candidate from Habba Kadal in 2002, was the last elected minister from the community. Since then, the community with below three lakh population have been without an elected legislator.
During the delimitation of constituencies carried out in the aftermath of the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, Kashmiri Pandits were voicing for reservation of assembly seats for them. Instead, the Narendra Modi government bestowed them with two nominated legislators with equal powers to that of an elected MLA after the abrogation of Article 370. The move will allow them along one from Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir refugees representation in the 90-member Legislative Assembly.
Originally hailing from Anantnag town, the 54-year-old Saraf is affiliated with Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party and was one of over two dozen candidates from the Kashmiri Pandit community in the fray from the Valley's 47 seats. But not a single candidate could mark a win from anywhere, making Saraf believe he is not "fit for electoral politics in the Valley".
"It is surprising," said Saraf sitting alongside his two workers in the lawn. “We expected people to vote for me as they promised during my door-to-door meetings and election campaign in the constituency. But I think people did not vote for development or jobs but Article 370 and Article 35A," added Saraf.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government annulled Article 370 which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir and downgraded the state into union territories including Ladakh. "They want development and jobs from me apart from help in hospitals outside Kashmir. But they did not vote for me," Saraf quipped.
But Saraf feels his own community Kashmiri Pandit failed him as well in getting him elected to the Assembly. Citing his successes including reviving Dussehra and taking out the Janmashtami procession to celebrate the birthday of Lord Krishna in Srinagar after the migration of Kashmiri Pandits from their homes in the Valley, he sees these measures have not wooed his community.
"Kashmiri Pandits have not voted for me," he added. Saraf travelled to Jammu twice and sought support from Kashmiri Pandits living there and in fact he claims to have met representatives of the community, who had assured support.
"I opened many temples in the Valley for them and took care of several worship places. I fought against the land grabbing mafia who had taken over 117 houses of Kashmiri Pandits in Habba Kadal. Despite these things, only 89 Kashmiri Pandits voted for me against the expected 1500," said Saraf.
He alone is not at the receiving end. In south Kashmir's Shangus-Anantnag East constituency, Dileep Kumar Pandita was contesting as an independent candidate. A Kashmiri Pandit and a resident of Jaggti township that houses the displaced people in Jammu's Nagrota, he contested his maiden Lok Sabha elections this year but lost. He bagged 3722 votes emboldening him to contest the Assembly election.
A businessman from Jammu, his electoral foray was prompted after his son's alleged murder in 2019. The slain 22-year-old Dipin Pandita, according to him, was murdered in a conspiracy in South Kashmir and he feels justice is eluding him.
"There are hundreds of Dipins in Kashmir and I contested the polls to fight for their justice too," he added. But Pandita bagged only 249 votes.
"I was short of one vote to touch 250," he said and laughed at the paltry number. "I accommodated 34 youth from Anantnag in MNCs like Wipro, HP etc and will set up three skill development centres for training youth. Yet it did not fetch votes."
Sanjay Tickoo, who is president of the Kashmiri Pandit Sangarsh Samiti said the community has lost interest in the elections as nothing much has been done for their community by the successive governments.
He said they have pressed for reservation of two seats during delimitation so that they could have got true representation in the Assembly.
"But none (political parties) wants KP representation,” he told ETV Bharat. "For instance, in Habba Kadal, Muslim voters increased after the 1990s. So Kashmiri Pandits will get representation in the Assembly only when Muslims too vote for them. This is why we were seeking reservation of two seats from Kashmir for us on the pattern of ST or SC."
Tickoo is not happy with two nominated members from the community saying they won't be true representatives of Kashmiri Pandits saying, "they will be from BJP and they will follow their agenda".
