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BJP rescinds J&K candidate list, issues fresh ones amid rumblings
The rescinded list, which included eight candidates from Kashmir and 36 from Jammu, triggered protests at the BJP office in Jammu
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday issued revised lists of 16 candidates for the first phase of the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) assembly elections on September 18 hours after withdrawing the list with 44 nominees amid rumblings within the party. It first reissued a list of 15 candidates before releasing a second one with one nominee.
“The first list had to be withdrawn because it created a lot of furore among the party loyalists and senior leaders of the BJP. They sulked over the selection of political turncoats at the expense of loyal and time-tested party leaders, who stood with the party through thick and thin,” said a BJP leader, requesting anonymity.
The rescinded list, which included eight candidates from Kashmir and 36 from Jammu, triggered protests at the BJP office in Jammu. It included former ministers Choudhary Zulfikar, who quit the Apni Party to join the BJP, Syed Mushtaq Bukhari, a former National Conference (NC) leader, and former People’s Democratic Party (PDP) legislator Murtuza Khan. Shyam Lal Shama, who defected from Congress to BJP, was given the ticket from Jammu West. Surjit Singh Salathia, a former NC leader, was named BJP’s candidate from Samba. Devender Singh Rana, who defected to BJP after quitting the National Conference in 2021, was fielded from Nagrota.
The first lists were a day before the last date for nominations for the first phase. Assembly elections in J&K, the first since 2014, will be held in three phases on September 18, 25, and October 1. It is the first major electoral exercise in the region after the 2024 national elections. The counting of votes will take place on October 4.
The rescinded list had 10 nominees for the second phase and 19 for the third phase. It included candidates for Kashmir Valley’s Pampore, Shopian, and Anantnag. The BJP did not field any candidates in the Lok Sabha polls for the three seats in the Valley. It won both Lok Sabha seats in the Jammu region.
The BJP’s Central Election Committee met on Sunday to finalise the candidates for the J&K assembly polls. The party won 25 of the 87 seats when assembly elections were last held in J&K in 2014 and formed the government with the PDP which bagged 28 seats. The NC got 15 seats while its ally Congress had 12.
The polls in J&K will be held months after the Union government in July widened the scope of J&K lieutenant governor’s powers from police and public order to postings and prosecution sanctions. Parties such as NC condemned the move calling it the step to rendering the chief minister in J&K “powerless” and disempowering the region’s people.
J&K has been without an elected government since June 2018 when the BJP withdrew support to the PDP-led coalition government. The region was under the governor’s rule before the Union government in August 2019 revoked Article 370 of the Constitution, which gave the region semi-autonomous status, and bifurcated the erstwhile state into the Union Territories of J&K with an assembly and Ladakh without one.
In December last year, the Supreme Court upheld the revocation of Article 370 and directed the Election Commission of India to conduct polls for the 90-member J&K assembly by September 30, 2024. The court asked the Union government to restore statehood to the region “as soon as possible”.
In May 2022, a three-member delimitation commission redrew the electoral map of J&K, earmarking 43 seats to the Hindu-majority Jammu region and 47 to Muslim-majority Kashmir. Out of the seven new seats, six were allotted to Jammu and one to Kashmir. The regional parties rejected the panel’s decision calling it an attempt to consolidate BJP’s vote bank.
