Early Times Report
Jammu, May 29: The PDP, which came into being in 1999, had won three Lok Sabha seats in 2014. It also won 28 Assembly seats the same year before stitching an alliance with the BJP. Around the same time, a large number of party MLAs left PDP and joined rival political parties in search of greener pastures.
Two Finance Ministers, Haseeb Drabu and Altaf Bukhari, quit the party. It hurt the party and denting its image in the eyes of the electorate. One top Shia leader and minister, Imran Raza Ansari, and few MLAs also jumped the 'sinking' ship.
With support from some of the seniors in the party, including Muzaffar Hussain Baig she managed to check 'open rebellion' in the party.
But, now things have changed. Mehbooba Mufti has been left all alone. A handful of sympathisers and old guards, who were trusted lieutenants of Mufti Mohd Sayeed, continue to guard their home turf and keeping the party flag high.
When it comes to number game, PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti herself scored lowest votes in the final tally.
In 2014, PDP had won 28 Assembly seats. But in 2019, the PDP could muster majority votes from only four Assembly segments out of 46 seats in Kashmir valley.
In 2014, when PDP won all three Lok Sabha seats, it had secured majority votes on 39 Assembly seats.
Anger against PDP can be judged from the fact that even from Tral, the birth place of Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Burhan Wani, the BJP candidate, Sofi Yousuf, secured majority votes leaving behind PDP, NC and the Congress.
The PDP could manage only wafer-thin majority in four Assembly segments of - Bijbehara, Pulwama, Shopian and Rajpora - in South Kashmir. On the other hand, the PDP failed to open its account in central Kashmir districts of Srinagar, Ganderbal and Budgam. It had won at least 7 Assembly seats in 2014 in the same area.
The strife-torn south Kashmir region, which has been a traditional stronghold of the PDP, appeared not to have forgotten the 2016 unrest. Mehbooba's "toffee-and-milk" analogy over the protests played a great part in the defeat of former Chief Minister from the Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency.
In the 2014 parliamentary elections, Mehbooba's party had led in all 16 Assembly segments from south Kashmir.
The PDP had won 11 of the 16 Assembly seats while the NC and Congress had emerged victorious on two seats each in the 2014 Assembly polls in the four districts of south Kashmir. The Kulgam Assembly segment was won by CPM. This time, the NC has emerged leader in seven seats and Congress in four seats. |
