It was a theatrical moment in Srinagar on Saturday, when Jammu and Kashmir unit BJP president Ravinder Raina, raised his voice with folded hands to appeal to the Election Commission of India to announce the schedule for the Assembly polls in J&K, just two days before the fifth anniversary of the Central rule in Jammu and Kashmir – first 17 months as state, and the rest 43 as Union Territory. This appeal was a strategic move to survive in the middle of the narratives that the party had lost the faith and confidence of the people of Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, and also to counter the criticism that it was running away from the Assembly polls.
The party knows that its appeal to the Election Commission of India will not change the ground realities as its appeal would have no impact on the Election Commission, which is waiting for a nod from the Centre before announcing the schedule for Assembly polls in the Union Territory. But the party wanted to deliver a message that it too is looking for polls like others, dismissing the perceptions that it wanted to rule by proxy through the current bureaucratic dispensation.
A rally, where Raina made this appeal, was well attended by the party’s standards in the Valley. The party is still without a prominent face. All its top leadership of the Union Territory comes from Hindu -dominated Jammu region. Although the normalcy in the past couple of years has endeared Kashmiris, but they have not been riveted toward BJP. The party is busy with the drumbeat that all the normalcy, in which Kashmiris have rediscovered the pleasures and certainty of living life as usual, is due to the abrogation of Article 370. Kashmiris nurture a deep hurt as they think that the abrogation of the semi-autonomous status of their erstwhile status has resulted in the direct central rule. The elected government was seen by them five years ago. Since then they have been subjected to bureaucratic rule, which is dominated by officers from outside, having no knowledge of the geography or demography. Worse, they have no empathy with the people of the Valley. This has made the people to yearn for the return of an elected government of the men and women of their choice.
BJP has sensed this. In fact, the saffron party is on backfoot. It is having no answers why Assembly elections were not being held in Jammu and Kashmir. All its goalposts – let the pandemic be over, let Delimitation Commission submit its report and let there be electoral rolls revision –have been scaled. It was being asked, why the elections are not being held. To this, its standard answer is that it is for the ECI to take a call. But it was miles away from asking the Election Commission to announce the polls. It was strange as it, too, was feeling the heat of the absence of the elected government and quite annoyed with some of the decisions of the bureaucratic dispensation. It, however, was caught in a catch-22 situation, for seeking elections would have meant to take on the current dispensation in J&K, functioning with the blessings of the Centre. The local leadership had no guts to challenge its own government at the Centre. Now, it is a strategic escape route for the BJP to call for elections. The party knows that it is for the ECI to announce elections and that too not without the green signal from the government. What it has done is to place itself in the line of the parties demanding elections, to blunt the criticism that it is not ready for elections.
On Saturday, Raina recalled and responded to the criticism of the opposition parties that BJP is scared of Assembly polls, “ We are not running away from any electoral contest,” he said and then in a very high-pitched tone made an appeal to the Election Commission- “ I urge Election Commission of India to announce dates for the Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir.”
This was an attempt to deflect and rebuff the opposition criticism that the saffron party was running away from the Assembly elections, but more than that it had a ring of telling party workers that they would have to be on offensive on the elections rather than submitting to the opposition’s charges that party was escaping elections.
The ground realities do not permit the announcement of elections anytime soon. For the next two months, beginning July 1, Amarnath Yatra, a Hindu pilgrimage to a cave shrine in Kashmir Himalayas, devoted to Lord Shiva, will be on. This pilgrimage is a high-security venture, in which all activities are placed in suspension mode to ensure its success. The government would not be taking any risk to hold or announce the polls during the pilgrimage period. Thereafter, there are elections scheduled in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Mizoram. Any elections in J&K before that, or even along with these states, are unthinkable. It will have long- term impact. The BJP is aware of it, so it has also thrown its ball in the ring, to counter strategically the opposition. But nevertheless, it has made an attempt to be heard as a pro-poll party.
| Posted by Sameer Khan | 
