The BJP is burning the midnight oil this time to win at least one Lok Sabha seat from Kashmir to make its electoral presence felt in the Valley where the party’s founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee sacrificed his life 71 years ago while fervently opposing Article 370.
Senior BJP leaders have launched a high-pitched campaign, particularly in south Kashmir’s Anantnag constituency where the party visualises bright prospects due to the recent delimitation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his speech during his recent visit to Srinagar, tried to connect with a cross-section of Kashmiri people. Specifically, the BJP leadership mobilised several Paharis and Gujjars from the Rajouri and Poonch districts, which are now part of the Anantnag constituency, to Jammu, where the PM had visited a few days earlier.
Although the BJP has a long history of struggle in Jammu and Kashmir, it has so far never won even a single Lok Sabha or Assembly seat in the Kashmir valley where candidates of the Congress, National Conference (NC), and PDP have been winning the polls.
Being the first election after abrogating Article 370 in August 2019, winning even a single Lok Sabha seat from Kashmir is of high political significance for the BJP as compared to both the parliamentary seats of Jammu which the party is representing.
Mukherjee, who founded the party in 1951 after resigning from the Jawahar Lal Nehru cabinet, was arrested on 11 May 1953 by Sheikh Abdullah’s administration when he entered J&K to protest against Article 370. He died as a detenue in the Srinagar jail in June 1953.
Thereafter in the later years, BJP leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, and others continued their struggle against the special status granted to J&K.
Modi accompanied then BJP chief Murli Manohar Joshi in 1992 to hoist the tricolour in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk when terrorism was at its peak in Kashmir.
However, the BJP leadership is exuding confidence after the Modi government granted Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the Paharis of Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu, parts of which have been included in the Anantnag seat of Kashmir in the recent delimitation. The exercise has also altered the caste composition of the constituency.
J&K BJP chief Ravinder Raina and general secretary (organisation) Ashok Koul are now spending more time in Kashmir addressing rallies to strengthen the party’s support. Koul recently claimed that the party is doing exceptionally well in Kashmir and has gained enough foothold to defeat the regional parties.
Addressing a rally in the Nepora area of Anantnag on Saturday, Raina asked the people to support the BJP to bloom the lotus in the constituency where peace and development has been restored under the Modi government.