Having seen a decline in the winning margin of its candidates in Jammu and Kashmir during the recent Lok Sabha elections, the BJP is eyeing a big chunk of seats in the upcoming assembly elections by bringing back master strategist Ram Madhav.
BJP President JP Nadda has appointed its former general secretary (organisation) Ram Madhav and union minister G Kishan Reddy as in-charge for the upcoming assembly elections in J&K.
Reddy has already been functioning as election in-charge and has done a lot of spadework for the party candidates.
However, the return of Madhav is expected to boost morale of the BJP cadres as he is well aware of the ins and outs of the ticklish political scenario in J&K.
As a key RSS-BJP leader, Madhav was involved with the politics of the erstwhile state between 2014 and 2020 and is back in action after remaining under shadow for four years.
Madhav came to limelight in 2015 when he stitched the unexpected coalition between BJP and PDP and brought the former to power for the first time in J&K. It was a hung assembly in 2014 when the BJP won 25 seats and PDP got 28 in the 87 member assembly.
He played a crucial role in influencing the PDP leader Mufti Sayeed to join hands with BJP to form the government. After the formation of the coalition government, Mufti remarked that it was like the north and south poles coming together.
Sending Madhav back to J&K also signals that the bitterness between RSS and BJP that emerged during the Lok Sabha elections has also settled down and he has come here to play a key role in making coordinated efforts to further strengthen the party.
Madhav is perhaps the lone RSS-BJP leader who during his earlier stint in J&K made friendly working relations with Kashmiri leadership. Peoples Conference leader Sajad Lone, who was earlier with the Hurriyat, was considered close to Madhav.
Besides J&K, Madhav is considered instrumental in making BJP’s inroad in the north-east.
The BJP government is this time banking on the 9 seats that it has reserved for scheduled tribes for the first time in the J&K assembly.
Although the Modi government granted scheduled tribe status to the Pahari community of the Rajouri, Poonch and Baramulla districts shortly before the Lok Sabha polls, this favour did not translate into votes for the candidates the party supported.
The party leadership expects the reservation to work in its favour in the assembly elections when the BJP is set to field its own candidates.
In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won both seats of the Jammu division with a lesser margin of votes, while all the three candidates it backed in Kashmir lost badly.