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| Big fight begins in Srinagar between Farooq Abdullah and Maulvi Iftikhar | | 17 nominations for Srinagar LS seat, 6 for Sonwar Assembly segment, 3 for Hazratbal | |
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
Srinagar, Apr 18: When Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah bulldozed his political opponents with the Indira-Abdullah accord in 1975, his Plebiscite Front rebel Sofi Mohammad Akbar vanished into oblivion in hometown Sopore and the Jamaat-e-Islami veteran Syed Ali Shah Geelani had already neutralised his own image of a revolutionary leader by participating in the dubiously held Assembly elections of 1972, Shia Muslim cleric Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari had little competition to grab the opportunity of emerging as Sher-e-Kashmir’s arch rival in Kashmir’s political landscape. Over two other competitors---Shameem Ahmed Shameem and Abdul Gani Lone---Ansari had the advantage of hailing from the core of Central Kashmir as also being the spiritual leader of a sizable votebank. Thus, he qualified well for an attack by Sheikh’s cubs while filing his nomination papers as an Independent candidate against Begum Akbar Jehan in February 1977.
Maulvi had remained a Member of Legislative Council since 1973 but he shot into veritable prominence when National Conference (NC) jihadis roughed him up and snatched away his Qarraquli on occasion of filing his nomination for Srinagar-Budgam in the Lok Sabha elections of March 1977. Then widely circulated Srinagar Times carried one of Bashir Ahmed Bashir’s popular cartoons on Ansari’s headgear next day. In a few days, Ansari put up a 30,000-strong show on the spacious Gole Bagh---where High Court and Legislature Complexes came up years later---in front of the Civil Secretariat. He slammed Kashmir’s legendary political icon with his loud roar and gave his widely revered spouse a tough fight. Still, he had to be content with just 87,000 votes against Begum’s whopping 2.10 Lakh.
Alongwith all of his ilk---Maulana Masoodi, Ghulam Mohiuddin Qarra, Mirwaiz Farooq, Abdul Gani Lone etc etc---Ansari joined Murarji Desai’s ruling Janata Party next month. At the end of an electrifying campaign in the Assembly elections of June 1977, only two of JP candidates---Lone in Handwara and the Mirwaiz-nominee Abdul Rashid Kabuli---were returned in the Valley as NC swept the polls. It was obviously in recognition of his defeating Ansari in Pattan that Sheikh Abdullah inducted Abdul Rashid Shaheen as a junior Minister in his government.
As his vengeance refused to die down, Ansari successfully uprooted the NC candidate and romped home in Pattan in the Assembly elections of 1983. In league with his former patrons in Congress---notably Mufti Mohammad Sayeed--- he played a key role in engineering a split in NC, dismissing Farooq Abdullah as Chief Minister and getting Ghulam Mohammad Shah installed as head of the government in July 1984.
In the backdrop of Rajiv-Farooq Accord, Ansari made a dramatic somersault and outsmarted all in the state politics in becoming Farooq Abdullah’s bosom friend. This association showed spectacular resilience in surviving all kinds of hostile weather. Even as Ansari won as an Opposition Congress candidate in Pattan in 1996, Farooq Abdullah inducted him as a Minister in his Cabinet. In 2002 he was once again returned from Pattan, though NC lost the power to Mufti’s PDP.
Nobody had an inkling of the split when Ansari made another dramatic turnaround and returned to his much abused detractor Mufti Sayeed’s camp in 2005. He resigned as NC’s MLA and contested the by-elections in 1996 but lost to Farooq Abdullah’s brother, Dr Mustafa Kamal. In 2008, he, however, managed his victory from the same segment by defeating NC’s Abdul Rashid Shaheen.
Even as nobody from NC removed Ansari’s Qarraqulli today, his election fighting came full circle after 32 years this afternoon when, for the first time, he jumped into the arena to directly take on Sheikh Abdullah’s son, Farooq Abdullah. Still suffering the jolt of the defeat of the Assembly elections of 2008, PDP and Mufti are obviously banking on Ansari’s sectarian base in Srinagar-Budgam in the current Lok Sabha elections.
The Central Kashmir constituency of Srinagar-Budgam-Ganderbal has been NC’s invincible bastion whether in power or in opposition. While Dr Farooq Abdullah scored his first victory here when nobody stood against him in the Lok Sabha elections of 1980, NC’s Abdul Rasheed Kabuli slammed a crushing defeat on then Chief Minister Ghulam Mohammad Shah’s son, Muzaffar Shah, in 1984. With all available resources, Shah got a paltry 61,000 votes against Kabuli’s 2,64,000. Again in 1989, NC’s Mohammad Shafi Bhat went uncontested.
In 1996, Ghulam Mohammad Mir Magami, a Shia leader from Budgam district, managed a victory over JD’s Farooq Andrabi with a margin of less than 2,000 votes, thanks to a sectarian divide in the low turnout polling. His real advantage was NC’s absence from the Lok Sabha elections. Thereafter, NC’s Omar Abdullah has continuously retained this all-important seat for his party in 1998, 1999 and 2004 elections. Even as NC lost some segments in the Assembly elections in 2002 and later PDP’s Tariq Hameed Qarra dealt it the first major blow in Batmaloo in 2004-05, it has swept the polls fully in the Assembly elections of 2008 in Srinagar and lost only three of the 15 segments.
In 1998, Congress candidate Aga Syed Mehdi (also an influential Shia leader) secured only 74,000 against Omar Abdullah’s 1,45,000 votes. In 1999, then Independent Mehboba Mufti got just 18,000 votes in Srinagar-Budgam against Omar Abdullah’s 55,000. And notwithstanding its loss of power in 2002 Assembly elections, NC’s Omar Abdullah trounced PDP’s Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjoora with a margin of 23,000 votes.
With the big fight unfolding between Farooq Abdullah and Maulvi Iftikhar, both have certain advantage in the current elections. PDP has managed to get back its estranged Shia leader, Aga Syed Mehmood, who has functioned as a Minister in Dr Abdullah’s government for two terms, last fortnight. However, given his second successive defeat in Budgam, his base is no match to that of the NC MLA Aga Ruhulla who has been returned for his second term with a massive vote of nearly 20,000. Both have influence of varied proportions in five other segments of Shia base in Srinagar-Budgam. Even as Ansari is expected to get the lion’s share of Shia vote, PDP can obviously find an advantage in nothing less than a turnout of around 20 to 25 percent as a sectarian divide could benefit it only in that situation.
Meanwhile, Returning Officer and DC Srinagar, Meraj Ahmed Kakroo, told Early Times that in all 17 nominations were received for Srinagar-Budgam Lok Sabha seat till the last minute of filing of nominations today. The candidates include Dr Farooq Abdullah’s sister Khalida Shah, who has been installed as his party ANC’s President after husband G M Shah’s death in January this year.
When the nomination process ended today, three candidates were found in the fray in Hazratbal Assembly segment. They include NC’s Dr Mustafa Kamal, PDP’s Asiya Naqash and ANC-backed Mufti Nazimuddin Massarat. DC Srinagar said that the six candidates, who have filed nomination papers for Sonwar, include NC’s Mohammad Yasin Shah and PDP’s Mohamamd Ashraf Mir. He said that scrutiny of these nominations would take place on April 20 and April 22 stood fixed as the last date for withdrawal of nominations. Polling is scheduled to be conducted on May 7th.
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