His party in doldrums, Altaf Bukhari tries to shrug off BJP tag in do-or-die J&K battle

Called Amirakadal before the delimitation of the J&K Assembly seats in 2022, Channapora had been won by Bukhari as a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in 2014.

But the politics of Kashmir has seen a drastic change in these 10 years – and one of the principal characters of that change has been Bukhari. Having been expelled from the PDP in January 2019, he had formed the Apni Party in the vacuum after the abrogation of Article 370 when all the main political leaders of Kashmir were put under detention. This had immediately earned Bukhari, among the richest candidates in the J&K elections, with assets of Rs 155 crore (including his wife’s), the tag of a BJP “proxy”.

Apni Party, led by former minister Syed Altaf Bukhari, show of strength rally in Srinagar. (Express Photo by Shuaib Masoodi)

The tag was one of the reasons that the Apni Party could not perform well in the two electoral tests it has seen so far – first the District Development Council (DDC) elections in 2020, and second, the recent Lok Sabha elections.

The DDC polls were devised by the Centre as a new form of representative governance, to counter accusations of crushing democracy in J&K post-Article 370 abrogation. A lot of its hopes were seen as vested in the Apni Party. However, when the polls were held, the Apni Party could secure only 12 out of the 280 DDC seats across J&K.

In the recent Lok Sabha polls, Apni Party candidates could not register a lead in any of the 36 Assembly segments across the parliamentary seats of Srinagar and Anantnag-Rajouri that it contested. Its candidates failed to secure a lead even in their home constituencies, and forfeited their security deposits.

The same was also true of the Bukhari’s home constituency Channapora, part of the Srinagar parliamentary seat. Here, Apni Party candidate Mohammad Ashraf Mir could secure only 3,101 votes.

Since the Lok Sabha results, the Apni Party has tried to distance itself from the BJP. The party has fielded 46 candidates in the Assembly elections – 35 from Kashmir and 11 from Jammu. Last month, announcing the party’s plans for the Assembly polls, Bukhari said: “We learned a big lesson from the parliamentary elections. The people of Jammu and Kashmir are not pleased about (us) supporting or seeking the support of any one. We are not going to be part of any alliance. We will not seek support from anyone nor will we support anyone during the assembly polls.”

The Channapora constituency, when called Amirakadal, used to be a stronghold of the NC, which has represented it six times.

But the Apni Party is finding that this is easier said than done, especially in the face of constant allegations by its rivals.

Iqbal Trumboo, the PDP candidate from Channapora, says: “He (Bukhari) is on record saying what is wrong in being a BJP ally. Even BJP leaders have been saying that he is their man… He may have changed his statements now, after the poll debacle, but who will listen to him?”

A resident of Natipora in Channapora, who does not want to be quoted, also talks about Bukhari’s “BJP links”, even as he believes all political leaders are opportunists. “You never know who is going to ally with the BJP, but Altaf Bukhari has been openly saying in the past that he is an ally of the BJP. So it is difficult for us to trust him.”

The Channapora constituency, when called Amirakadal, used to be a stronghold of the NC, which has represented it six times. The Congress has won the seat thrice and the PDP once.

While there are eight candidates in the fray, the real contest is between Bukhari, the NC’s Mushtaq Ahmad Guroo and the PDP’s Trumboo.