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| In Udhampur, Congress counts on Bhim Singh, BJP on Arshid Malik | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Apr 11: With no cakewalk victory visible in the current Lok Sabha elections, battle lines are drawn for neck-and-neck contests in five of the six Parliamentary segments in Jammu and Kashmir. Thanks to strong undercurrents of the 'Modi wave', the 18.50 Lakh voters-strong Jammu ends up as the only constituency where the result is a foregone conclusion. "We have voted for Modi", said the voters wherever asked-few of them knowing the BJP candidate Jugal Kishore Sharma or his party.
With due respect to the coalition leaders like Omar Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad, the so-called 'Modi wave' looked to be at work everywhere from Samba to Jammu and Rajouri to Poonch and from the elite to the grass-root on the day of polling on April 10. A stark anti-incumbency factor took an additional toll from the ruling coalition that has ruled the State for over five years.
Congress party is at the worst receiving end for a reason: It has been continuously in power since 2002 in the State and since 2004 in the Centre. It not change its candidates in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Both, Madan Lal Sharma, in Jammu-Poonch and Choudhary Lal Singh in Udhampur-Doda, have served two terms each since they were first recalled from Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's Cabinet as the Ministers incharge Public Works and Health respectively in 2004 and catapulted into the Parliamentary elections.
That both of them had a strong passion for nepotism and favouritisem became clear on the day one when Madal Lal insisted that his brother Sham Lal Sharma be elected as MLA and inducted as a Minister. Similarly, Lal Singh wanted none other than wife Kanta Andhotra to replace him in the State Assembly through the resultant by-elections.
In the years to come, the two MPs severed connection to their masses at a large scale and became islands for the electorate that returned them for the Parliament successively twice. Their total disconnect to the masses snowballed into a severe anti-incumbency factor which, coupled with the Modi wave, graduated to an unprecedented political catastrophe for the Congress party. An unnatural alliance with NC, a party condemned and criticized for years, did the rest of the damage to the Congress. The massive turnout of 12.56 Lakh voters on Thursdayleft nothing to speculate.
However, Udhampur-Doda is a little different not only for its composition of the population but also the fact that 10 out of 17 segments have been with the coalition partners. National Panthers Party founder Prof Bhim Singh, who secured around 70,000 votes in the previous Lok Sabha elections and helped the Congress win, is yet again in the fray. The recently expelled BJP leader Chaman Lal Gupta, who has served a hat-trick on the BJP ticket and lost the fourth battle from Udhampur with a thin margin, has projected son Anil Gupta as his successor and candidate. Prof Gupta has been the BJP's tallest years in the last many years in Jammu as he has also worked as the Minister of State for Defence in the Vajpayee-led NDA government. Both of them together, Bhim Singh and Anil Gupta could take away around 100,000 votes from the BJP field.
On the other hand, PDP's Arshid Malik could break away the Muslim votebank in the crucial Chinab Valley and thus cause a dent to the Congress stronghold on account of his religious background and political profile. The more his vote, the lesser Mr Azad's prospect of victory. |
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