Srinagar: The high-stakes Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections are over with the National Conference (NC) sweeping the polls in Kashmir and Bharatiya Janata Party in Jammu.
Contrary to it, the political formation which was seen as an alternative to the traditional political parties has drawn blank across the 90 seats, raising question marks over their political future. This includes two key political parties - J&K Apni Party and Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) led by Ghulam Nabi Azad. Even Engineer Rashid's unregistered Awami Ittehad Party and the independent candidates supported by proscribed Jamaat-e-Islami, J&K could not win a single seat.
Amid much fanfare, businessman turned politician Syed Altaf Bukhari was the first to float his own Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party in March 2020, challenging the traditional parties like NC and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The party drew about a dozen key leaders from Bukhari’s former party PDP of which he was a minister in the previous government.
Bukhari who was seen as a strong contender in the fray lost to a political newcomer Mushtaq Guroo of NC from Srinagar's Chanapora constituency. The former legislator, who was one of the richest candidates in the fray, lost by a margin of over 5600 votes. The rest of over two dozen candidates mimicked the performance of their boss, losing their seats.
While the losses are significant, the party sees their performance through vote share. For instance, the party’s senior vice president and former minister Ghulam Hassan Mir lost by a margin of 4191 votes to his political opponent Farooq Ahmed Shah from the Gulmarg constituency. Mir bagged 22793 votes in the constituency he represented in the past.
But the striking blow to his party does not prompt him to give up saying the party secured significant vote share both in Kashmir as well as Jammu, indicating their party has a role in the Jammu & Kashmir political landscape. He cites several constituencies where the party secured vote share in four digits. In Jammu, for instance, their unsuccessful candidate Manjit Singh secured 13,161 votes from Vijaypur.
"It was an NC wave and there is no second meaning to the verdict," Syed Altaf Bukhari told ETV Bharat. The Apni Party is yet to gather after the defeat to chalk out their strategy for the next move. But the plan is already on their mind to effectively counter the NC-led government outside the Assembly.
"We acknowledge our party is not inside the House but we will play a role outside the Assembly. It will be smooth for the NC to run the government as they have numbers in the assembly. But we will take the NC to task on the promises it made to people," he added.
Likewise, the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) floated by Ghulam Nabi Azad after his exit from Congress in 2022 has fallen flat in the Assembly election. The party’s 21 candidates across the 90 constituencies failed to win a single seat with many including its candidate Maheshwar Singh Manhas from Jammu North bagging a mere 204 votes, losing his security deposit.
This was the second time the party could not make any significant mark in their maiden electoral foray of Lok Sabha polls and lost their security deposits. The DPAP which contested on three Lok Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir including Udhampur, Anantnag and Srinagar drew a mere 80,000 votes against the above 54 lakh voters.
Political analyst Noor Ahmad Baba says that the verdict carries an implicit message that the political formations or the political engineering that tried to reshape the politics of the region post-2019 is not "acceptable".
"The NC got the mandate because people thought it is the only force which can stand up to Delhi. Anyone who was seen in proximity with forces which reshaped politics was singled out and defeated. Even the parties who were seen close to part of that design or politics have been rejected in the polls," says Baba, who was a former political science teacher at Kashmir University.
