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Major highlights of crucial 2014 Assembly elections
12/21/2014 12:36:59 AM
Early Times Report

JAMMU, Dec 20: The 2014 assembly elections in Jammu & Kashmir were crucial for all the major political players in the state. The PDP and the BJP fought the elections to win and form the next government in the state. There could be a cutthroat competition between the PDP and the BJP after the election results are out on December 23. They could, according to many political pundits, even form coalition government in the state. The NC and the Congress fought the elections not to form the next government but to win some seats so that they also remained somewhat relevant in the state's political arena. The Congress and the NC never claimed during the election campaigning that they would form the next government on their own; they only claimed that no government could be formed without them or without their participation.
Now that the election process just got completed today, it is time to catalogue some of the very significant highlights of the 45-day-long very intense and bitter election campaign.
The elections were held in a peaceful atmosphere and there was no violence anywhere in the state. Leave aside a few minor incidents here and there.
Both the PDP and its arch-rival National Conference have described the electoral exercise as free and fair. The NC even commended the Indian agencies saying that it was for the first time in 60 years that the agencies remained neutral.
It was for the first time in the electoral history of the state that any Prime Minister addressed so many election rallies in the state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed 9 election rallies in the state covering 8 districts of Jammu province and two of Kashmir region. Interestingly, he had addressed only two public meetings in Jammu, one at Jammu on December 1, 2013 before the announcement of Lok Sabha poll schedule and the other at Hiranagar in April 2014.
The local BJP leadership was nowhere in sight during all these days of campaigning. It was basically the national BJP leaders who dominated the whole show and called all the shots.
It was also for the first time that the BJP didn't release its election manifesto and instead, came out with a vision document. The BJP was the only party which, unlike the NC, the PDP and the Congress, didn't release its election manifesto. Reports had suggested that the BJP had got prepared and printed 35-page election manifesto.
It was also for the first time that the BJP didn't raise Article 370 during the election campaigning. All other parties made Article 370 their one of the major poll planks and attacked the BJP. The BJP remained defensive during all these days of campaigning as far as its stand on Article 370 was concerned.
It was also for the first time that the PDP and he BJP adopted mission 44+ in the assembly elections. It was a major highlight given the fact that while the sub-regional PDP had only 21 members in the 87-member House, the BJP had only 11 members. Their missions were also significant because while the PDP had little support-base in Jammu, the BJP had no support-base in the Valley for all practical purposes.
The voter turnout this time round in Kashmir Valley was the highest ever. It witnessed voter turnout ranging from 80 per cent to 21 per cent. Even in the militancy-affected constituencies like Sopore and Tral, the poll percentage went up for the first time to 30 per cent since 1987. Likewise, in Haba Kadal and Amira Kadal the poll percentage went above 20 per cent.
The mobilization in Kashmir this time was on an unprecedented scale and the mobilization was against the BJP.
The separatists like Syed Ali Shah Geelani gave poll boycott calls but they didn't really mean it. In fact, their behind-the-scene activities encouraged the Kashmiri Muslim voters to vote in large numbers. They didn't enforce their poll boycott calls because this time their target was the BJP, which had worked hard to capture at least six assembly seats of Kashmir, including Anantnag, Bijbehara, Tral, Haba Kadal, Amira Kadal and Sopore, where the Kashmiri Hindu migrant voters could have tilted the balance in its favour had their been poll boycott. Syed Ali Shah Geelani even went to the extent of issuing a statement that the election boycott would be against the Kashmiri Muslims. The Kashmiri Hindu migrant voters didn't vote in large numbers. While the total number Kashmiri Hindu migrant Pandits across Kashmir was over 92000, their participation in the election was on lower side. For instance, in Ganderbal and Bandipora districts, which went to polls during the first phase of elections, of 3411 migrant voters, a little over 1000 cast their ballot. Similarly, out of 17015 registered Kashmiri Hindu migrant voters, only 5258 voters exercised their franchise in the second phase of elections.
During the third phase, of the 19,575 registered Kashmiri Hindu migrant voters in three districts of Baramulla, Budgam and Pulwama, only 4717 voters cast their ballot.
The NC and the Congress, which were still part of the existing dispensation, left no stone unturned to expose each other. The NC held the Congress responsible for the failure of the government to deliver and the vice-versa. Both termed each other as opportunist and politically dishonest. At the same time, both kept the doors open, saying they have not divorced each other on a permanent basis.
All the political parties focused on Kashmir and Kashmir issue and Jammu and Ladakh remained conspicuous by their absence in the first four phases of election. Jammu figured in the campaign only in the fifty and the last phase of election. In fact, all the political parties took Jammu and Ladakh for granted.
These are some of the highlights of the assembly elections and convey many things, which are also self-explanatory.
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