After a poor LS show, fate of three BJP ‘proxies’ in J&K hangs in the balance

The outcome has cast serious doubts about the future of the Apni Party and the DPAP and may also force the BJP to rethink its strategy of supporting them.

The Lok Sabha results have come as a rude shock to the Apni Party as two of its candidates — Mohammad Ashraf Mir and Zafar Iqbal Manhas — forfeited deposits in Srinagar and Anantnag-Rajouri respectively, especially at a time when Bukhari had been projecting himself as the future CM of Jammu and Kashmir. After a poor show in the District Development Council (DDC) polls in 2020, the party had hoped to better its performance in the Lok Sabha elections with the BJP’s support and a favourable administration.

Despite the BJP’s massive push in the Pahari belt of Pir Panjal, the party could not manage a lead in any of the 36 Assembly segments under the two Lok Sabha seats, and emerged runner-up in only nine segments. It managed to get 1.42 lakh votes (13.94% vote share) in Anantnag-Rajouri, of which about 91,986 (65%) of its votes came from the Pir Panjal range. In Srinagar, the party managed only a 9.7% vote share.

Both Mir and Manhas even failed to secure a lead from their home Assembly segments of Lal Chowk in Srinagar and Shopian. Mir is a former two-time PDP MLA from Sonawar and defeated former Jammu and Kashmir CM Omar Abdullah in 2014.

The DPAP seems to have had a worse outing as three of its candidates — Saleem Parray (Anantnag-Rajouri), former Congress stalwart G M Saroori (Udhampur) and Amir Bhat (Srinagar) — forfeited their deposits and the party recorded a single-digit vote share while not managing a lead in any of the 54 Assembly segments falling under the three seats.

Saroori managed a vote share of 3.6% and failed to secure a lead from the Inderwal Assembly segment, which he had represented three consecutive times in 2002, 2008, and 2014. On the other hand, Bhat and Parray managed vote shares of 2.23% and 2.45% respectively.

The Peoples Conference’s performance too was dismal as Sajad Lone barely managed to save his deposit in Baramulla, polling 980 votes more than the required number. The party’s overall vote share fell from 22.7% in 2019 to 16.75% while in Kupwara, which is seen as Lone’s stronghold, it fell from 27.7% to 23.8%. While Lone himself contested the polls this time, in 2019 he had fielded Raja Ajaz, a political greenhorn from Baramulla.

In contrast, Independent candidate Engineer Rashid, who hails from Kupwara and defeated Abdullah by more than 1 lakh votes, increased his vote share from 22.4% five years ago to 45.7%. In Kupwara, Rashid’s vote share almost doubled from 22.5% to 44%.