Curtains have been drawn on panchayats in Jammu and Kashmir. The five-year term of the panchayats, elected in 2018, expired on January 9, without newly elected bodies to succeed them nor any polls scheduled anytime soon. That became more than clear when the Government of Jammu and Kashmir notified appointed Block Development Officers (BDOs) as administrators for the panchayats for a period of six months. Going by the complex task ahead – the rotational reservation of the constituencies and with a new exercise ahead to reserve seats for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), it is not just unlikely but a reality that the polls cannot be held even after the next six months.
The present scenario in J&K vis-à-vis panchayats is an outcome of underlined objectives than the events having forced this stage of uncertainty of the next panchayat polls. The precedent was set by deferring the Urban Local Bodies polls in the union territory. The elections for the Municipal Corporations and Councils and local bodies should have been held by November 2023 to ensure the continuity of the institutions. The poll exercise was held back on the argument that as per the 73rd and 74th amendment, the seats should have been reserved for OBCs. That was not done. Now the panchayat polls too have been deferred.
National Conference vice president and former chief minister Omar Abdullah has posed pointed questions; why these exercises could not be held and completed before the term of these grassroots democratic institutions was to expire? the calendar was known, so why these exercises were not held in time? There are no convincing answers. It is a presumption in line with the overall political line of thinking where the BJP is not keen on facing any elections ahead of Lok Sabha polls, which are scheduled to be held in April-May this year. The party fears that any setback in these elections could impact the party’s chances in the Lok Sabha polls of 2024. The Lok Sabha polls have become all important for the party, where each seat matters.
In the internal analysis of the party, it has been concluded that going by the mood of the people in the Muslim-majority valley, it is very difficult for it to win even a single seat. It is pinning all hopes on the two parliamentary seats in the Hindi-majority Jammu region and for winning these two seats, one of them represented by Minister in Prime Minister’s Office Dr Jitendra Singh, the party has pulled all stops and will do more to ensure the victory. In short, all other polls have been made subservient to the Lok Sabha polls in Jammu and Kashmir.
This thinking of the BJP and its articulation of an all-out victory in the Lok Sabha polls – improving its tally of 2019 when it was riding on the wave of war against terrorism – manifested in the aerial strikes at terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad’s training camp in Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan in retaliation to the February 14, 2019 terror attack in Pulwama, which left 40 CRPF personnel dead. That changed the complexion of the 2019 polls, the Modi government was seen as strong in dealing with the cross-border terrorism. While the nation voted for BJP, the Valley showed its loyalty to the regional party- National Conference. All three LS seats of the Valley were won by the NC.
The BJP may perform well in LS polls in the Jammu region and win both the seats, but what is crucial is that it has lost its narrative of having set up Panchayat level democracy – taking power from three dynastic parties – Congress, NC, and PDP to more than 33,000 grassroot level panchs and sarpanches. This is the real democracy. It was repeated time and again. Now that rhetoric which had resonance with the ground realities, is gone. But that matters little to the political objectives as the focus is on winning Lok Sabha polls. For the time being, the grassroots democracy is back to the Parliament as far as J&K is concerned.
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