The experiment of the BJP to contest the Lok Sabha elections in the Kashmir Valley through ‘proxies’ has miserably failed as all such candidates forfeited their security deposit.

The huge win of the jailed Engineer Rashid, who contested the election from the Tihar Jail where he is lodged on the charges of terror funding and defeated former chief minister Omar Abdullah, reflects the anger the people have vented against the Modi Government through votes.

This is the first major election in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. After a gap of 35 years, the high polling was a vote against the ‘proxies of BJP’ and to teach a lesson to ‘dynasts’ like Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti. The electors were determined to put the BJP-backed proxies on the mat and they did it.

Meanwhile, the BJP won both Lok Sabha seats of Jammu albeit with a lesser margin as compared to that of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and the voting trend on the three seats of Kashmir also indicates the disconnect between the administration and Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha with the common people.

The proxies licked the dust not only in all three seats of the Kashmir Valley but also in the Udhampur constituency of Jammu where Ghulam Nabi Azad had fielded his trusted candidate Ghulam Mohammad Saroori allegedly to cut into the votes of Congress candidate Chaudhary Lal Singh.

Ghulam Nabi Azad, who quit Congress and formed his own party, the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP), Altaf Bukhari, who formed the Apni Party after quitting the PDP and also Sajad Lone, chairman of the Peoples Conference, who was a minister from the BJP quota in the PDP-BJP coalition government, are identified by people as ‘proxies’ of the BJP, particularly in the Valley.

Interestingly, the DPAP and the Apni Party were formed after the abrogation of Article 370 when the BJP was trying to make a foothold in the valley.

BJP-backed Sajad Lone polled 16.72 per cent votes against 45.75 per cent of the jailed Engineer Rashid in north Kashmir’s Baramulla seat.

The Apni Party of Altaf Bukhari, for whose candidates senior BJP leaders from within J&K and other states campaigned during the election, polled a dismal 13.89 per cent and 9.77 per cent votes in Anantnag and Srinagar constituencies, respectively.

The DPAP of Azad also performed badly polling 2.24 per cent, 2.5 per cent, and 3.56 per cent votes in the Srinagar, Anantnag and Udhampur constituencies, respectively.

The Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP which formed a coalition government with the BJP also seems to have been punished by Kashmiris by defeating her by close to 3 lakh votes on the Anantnag seat and her trusted lieutenant Waheed Ur Rehman Para by nearly 2 lakh votes in Srinagar. Another PDP candidate, Mir Muhammad Fayaz, forfeited his security deposit in Baramulla where he polled only 2.66 per cent votes.