Early Times Report
Jammu, May 26: After winning 303 Lok Sabha seats across the country, including three in Jammu and Ladakh with very impressive margins on its own, the BJP faces the real challenge of forming its own government in J&K. J&K BJP chief on Friday claimed that the BJP will achieve its 44+ target and form the next government in the state.
If its current performance in J&K is any indication, then it can be safely said that the BJP is seeking to achieve the unachievable.
What does the poll results in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh suggest as far as the desire of the BJP to form its own government in the state is concerned? Can it achieve the 44+ target in the state given its demographic profile? An analyse the Lok Sabha poll results at the micro-level show that the BJP led in 25 out of 37 assembly segments in Jammu province, all Hindu-dominated, and 3 assembly segments in Ladakh - Leh, Nubra and Zanskar where the Buddhists were more numerous. In other words, the BJP led only in 28 out of the 41 assembly segments in Jammu and Ladakh. In 2014, the BJP also had won 25 assembly seats from Jammu. The poll results also show that the BJP was completely routed in the Jammu's Poonch, Surankot, Mendhar, Darhal and Rajouri assembly segments. All these segments are Muslim-dominated and the Muslim voters voted for the Congress candidate wholesale. The BJP also suffered huge reverses in the Jammu's Doda, Bhaderwah, Kishtwar, Banihal, Gool Arnas assembly constituencies, where again the Muslims constituted a majority. But more than that, the BJP couldn't lead even the Bhaderwah, Doda and Kishtwar assembly segments the BJP had won with respectable margins in 2014. The BJP had four out of 6 assembly segments in the three districts of Doda, Ramban and Kishtwar. This time, the BJP could reach the 25 mark in Jammu because it led in the Nagrota and Bishnah assembly segments, which the NC had won in 2014, and in Udhampur, which had been won by the BJP rebel candidate Pawan Gupta.
As for Kashmir, less said the better. Suffice it to say that the BJP lost security deposits in all the elections it contested from Kashmir Valley having 46 assembly seats. The fact of the matter is that the BJP could get even 20,000 votes from Kashmir's three Lok Sabha constituencies - Srinagar, Anantnag and Baramulla - in the just concluded general election. These also included almost 10,000 Hindu migrant voters.
However, to say all this is not to suggest that the BJP cannot improve its tally in Jammu and Ladakh. It can. It can win a maximum number of 33 seats, 30 from Jammu and 3 from Ladakh. And that's all. |
