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| What assembly elections mean to Jammu and Ladakh? | | CM always from Kashmir | |
Early Times Report
JAMMU, Jan 31: NC vice-president Omar Abdullah has been urging again and again PM Narendra Modi to hold assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir at the earliest. He and others of his ilk want assembly elections in the state before general elections (before May) or along with general elections. He belongs to that party that had created constitutional crisis in the state on January 19, 1990. The then CM Farooq Abdullah had dissolved his government (creation of rigged elections) and fled away to London. He returned to the state only in 1996 and formed his government on October 9, 1996. In between, the state remained under the Governor's rule and President's rule (January 19, 1990 to October 8, 1996).
Omar Abdullah's is insisting on early polls under the notion that assembly elections, if held, would enable his party to recapture power in the state. His notion is perhaps based on the premise that his arch-political rival Mehbooba Mufti has lost her appeal and sheen and the people of Kashmir this time would vote for the NC en-block. Kashmir returns 46 MLAs to the 87-member assembly and Jammu and Ladakh together return only 41 despite the fact that both these regions occupy over 88 per cent of the state's land area and house a population equal to Kashmir, if not more.
It is difficult to say if the NC would win 44 seats out of 46 in Kashmir and form government on its own. For, Mehbooba Mufti is down but not out. Similarly, Sajad Lone, who is admitting to his People's Conference defectors from the PDP, has also become a factor in the Kashmir's politics. Then, there also exists in Kashmir People's Democratic Forum (PDF), which has the potential of winning 3 to 4 seats. The possibility of the Congress winning 3 to 4 seats in Kashmir also cannot be overruled. The point is that Omar Abdullah's calculations are not based on the ground realities in Kashmir. The NC has to win a substantial number of seats in Jammu and Ladakh, if it is to form government on its own, but the possibility of the NC wining even 6 seats in these two regions is too remote. It has hardly any-support-base left in Ladakh. Likewise, it has only a limited support-base in Jammu. It's confined to a few pockets in the mountainous areas of Jammu province. Of course, it won Nagrota and Bishnah in 2014 but these were the victories by default.
In any case, the CM would be from Kashmir even if the NC or the PDP or the Congress failed to win the required number of seats. Jammu and Ladakh would be again left high and dry as before. That the CM would be from Kashmir even if the Kashmir-based and Kashmir-centric parties failed to win the required number of seats could be seen from what happened between 1951 and 2002, when the NC and the Congress formed governments separately or together, and between 2002 and 2015, when the state was governed by coalition governments headed by Mufti Sayeed, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Omar Abdullah, Mufti Sayeed and Mehbooba Mufti, respectively. The BJp in Jammu and the Congress in Ladakh just can't think in terms of having their own CM because the Kashmir-based leadership of the NC, the PDP and the Congress would never allow the rise of a situation under which CM of the state will be from Jammu or Ladakh. What the NC, the PDP and the Congress did on November 21, 2018 in Kashmir is too fresh to be forgotten. That day, they had formed "Grand Alliance" to form coalition government to be headed by the PDP, but the Governor defeated their game plan by dissolving the assembly. They had formed grand alliance to "save the state and its special status". As for the BJP, less said the better. It will never win 44 seats. It would also put its eggs in some Kashmiri leader's basket in case it won a substantial number of seats.
So, if the people of Jammu province and Ladakh vote, they will get CM from Kashmir and if they don't, they will get CM from Kashmir. And this has been happening since 7 decades. How unfortunate are Jammu and Ladakh? And, how indifferent is New Delhi towards Jammu and Ladakh? It is also Kashmir-centric. |
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