Poll results put focus on Hindu-Muslim divide

On the other hand, the BJP has registered an unprecedented victory. From one constituency in the 2002 House, the BJP has managed to jump to 11 seats. The party took 3,45,908 votes in Jammu. The party first fuelled polarisation during the Amarnath agitation and its ministers in Punjab personally organised economic blockade of the Valley. And once the elections were announced, the party8217;s campaign turned the Amarnath land row into an effective poll plank. The BJP has taken over the Hindu heartland of Jammu city-Kathua-Samba in Jammu province, replacing the Congress and the NC.

Though the NC has retained its largest single party status, its numbers have matched its 2002 score of 28. This time, the oldest and the only pan-J-K party has Srinagar city to thank where all the eight seats voted for it.

Srinagar, which witnessed the lowest 20 per cent turnout this time, has chosen the NC for a different reason: the new rural Kashmir-urban Srinagar city divide.

Soon after the verdict was out, the chief ministerial candidate of the party, Omar Abdullah, categorically admitted that the PDP has made inroads into their political turf and it is a worrying fact. The PDP has defeated the NC in south Kashmir and substantially gained in north and central Kashmir. The PDP8217;s overall vote share has been boosted by more than six per cent from 2002.

The Congress and the NC have been at the receiving end from the BJP in Jammu. But the stark difference in the voters8217; pattern between the Hindu-dominated districts and the Muslim belt of Jammu has brought out a dangerous division within the province as well. And if the verdict showed any major trends, it exposed the communal polarisation within Jammu province and belied the larger consensus on the discrimination meted out to the entire Jammu region from the successive Kashmir-centric political establishments. For the first time in the last six decades, the Congress had given Jammu its first chief minister: Ghulam Nabi Azad who belongs to Bhalesa in Doda district and won from Bhaderwah constituency for the second consecutive time. But his Jammu credentials did not help him and his party in the Hindu heartland of the province where polarisation had transcended the regional Jammu province versus Kashmir Valley division, leading to a landslide victory for the BJP.

Sensing a threat to its base in Kashmir from a rising PDP, the NC had repositioned itself as a Kashmir-centric party during the Amarnath land row. Though its entire focus of attention was the role of the PDP leaders in the former coalition 8212; Deputy CM Muzaffar Beig and Forest Minister Qazi Afzal 8212; in the transfer of the land to the Amarnath Shrine Board, the NC had strongly opposed the transfer. In fact, Omar Abdullah8217;s fiery two-minute speech in Parliament during the trust vote set the stage for the party to reinvent its Kashmir-centric political discourse. Over the resolution of Kashmir dispute, too, the NC has competed with the PDP. First, the PDP unveiled its self-rule document, suggesting that the party wants a legislative, political and economic confederation with the PoK, thus transcending the traditional mainstream line of 8220;within the ambit of constitution8221; solution. The NC followed the PDP with its 8220;autonomy plus8221; resolution roadmap to which it claimed to add the Pakistan dimension, thus bringing it at par with the PDP8217;s self-rule.

The Congress missed its 2002 tally by three seats and won 17 constituencies. The Congress8217;s 17 seats included three constituencies in the Valley, where its leaders won primarily because of their individual clout rather than the party8217;s manifesto. Its victories in Doda and Kishtwar districts are linked to the personal influence of former CM Ghulam Nabi Azad and not the party itself. The Congress, however, lost its main political bastion, spread across the Hindu heartland of Jammu where its top leaders like former deputy chief minister Mangat Ram Sharma lost 8212; a poll defeat that came after six consecutive terms. But subsequently, the party had a lot to cheer about. The serious ideological rivalry between the other three major parties in the new House 8212; the NC, PDP and the BJP 8212; has turned the Congress into a necessary partner for any coalition. With 17 seats, the Congress has emerged as a king-maker.

If the NC and Congress finally stitch together a coalition, the Opposition benches in the House will be occupied by green and saffron parties. For the first time, the Hindu heartland of Jammu will not have any representation in the Government, while the separatist forces which had gathered around the PDP during this election will be in Opposition. This means that the post-Amarnath land row communal polarisation will be visible in the legislature as well. The coalition itself will be under constant strain because the two ruling alliance partners will have contradictory agendas to regain their traditional vote banks. The Congress will try its best to checkmate the BJP and focus on the Hindu-dominated districts of Jammu, while the PDP will keep the NC on its toes inside the Valley. There is a possibility that the PDP will shift its politics further towards the separatist discourse, while the BJP will halt every effort to allow any serious headway towards a Kashmir resolution based on self rule or autonomy plus proposal and rather insist on its integrationist ideology, seeking the scrapping of the special status to J-K within the Indian Union.