Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Apr 2: In Kashmir’s pre-militancy era, Communist Party of India (Marxist) had not only set up a strong base for itself in South Kashmir but had also expanded its influence to several Assembly segments beyond Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami’s Kulgam. Jamaat-e-Islami and National Conference were its ideological arch rivals. Still, Tarigami failed to win the elections he fought in the Jamaat-dominated belt.
Even the NC-Congress alliance got a dressing down in the 1987 Assembly elections. Of the four seats Muslim United Front, which had Jamaat as its key constituent, won in Kashmir valley, three were in Tarigami’s home strip of Anantnag-Homeshalibugh-Kulgam.
In the Assembly elections of 1996, NC’s humane leader advocate Ghulam Nabi Dar’s disinclination to contest from Kulgam proved to be a God-given gift for Tarigami who was, for the first time in his life, returned with a good margin of votes. It was for the first time that Tarigami’s supporters, including hordes of women in typical Kashmiri embroidered pherans, were seen casting their vote with confidence and enthusiasm at the eight polling booths set up at a Polling Station at the local Higher Secondary School. Even the most unexpected, Mohammad Khalil Bandh of CPI(M) won the election from Wachi, now represented by the PDP President Mehbooba Mufti.
As the CPI(M) leader Harkrishen Singh Surjit played a key role in holding of the first Assembly elections after 1987, Tarigami emerged as a major link between Srinagar and New Delhi. He was prepared for taking oath as a Minister of Farooq Abdullah’s Cabinet but soon a second thought in the Politburo had him withdrawn from the dais at SKICC. He retained his seat in a tough contest in 2002. Tarigami forged an alliance of about a dozen independent MLAs and played an important role in installing Mufti Mohammad Sayeed as the head of the PDP-Congress coalition government. Again, three MLAs of his PDF became Ministers in Mufti’s government but Tarigami failed to get himself inducted for being the State Secretary of a national party that preferred to stay off the power.
And in 2008, contrary to many speculations, Tarigami recorded his hat-trick from Kulgam in one of the most crucial electoral battles in the Valley. His NC and Jamaat rivals swear that a Central agency turned his “defeat” into victory with 200 migrant votes. By that time, Ghulam Nabi Dar had died in a militant attack actually aimed at the NC’s MLA and former Minister Sakeena Itoo. Like in 1996, Tarigami presented himself as a power partner though he never insisted on his induction as Minister under direction of his high command. He has been one of the best performing MLAs all through his three terms as MLA of Kulgam. His party candidates stood runners-up in two adjacent segments.
By conservative estimates, Tarigami’s influence is substantial in Kulgam, Wachi, Homeshalibugh, Noorabad and Devsar segments. His support proved to be decisive in the NC candidate Dr Mehboob Beg’s victory in the Lok Sabha elections of 2009.
However, going by a statement issued by Tarigami-led Awami Muttahida Mahaz here today, neither the group nor its constituents would contest the Lok Sabha elections. Three-time MLA and a former Minister Hakeem Mohammad Yaseen, former BSP MLA and President in J&K State Sheikh Abdul Rehman, former Lok Sabha member of National Conference Abdul Rashid Kabli, former MLC and CPI State head Abdul Rehman Tukroo as also I.D.Khajuria from Jammu participated in the meeting.
|
