However, the flip side of this is that not only have all its victories come in the Jammu division, in the 19 seats the BJP contested in the Valley, its candidates lost their deposits in all but one seat. But even in Kashmir, the party’s vote share saw a rise.
In 2014, when it contested 33 seats in Kashmir, and also lost deposits in all but one seat, the BJP got 2.5% of the votes across the constituencies it had a candidate in. In the recent Assembly polls, it contested almost half that number, 19 seats, but improved its vote share to 5.8% across these seats.
While the failure of the BJP to register a victory in Kashmir is reflective of the anger against the party over the scrapping of the special status and division of the erstwhile state into two Union Territories, the fact that it increased its vote share shows that the party made a careful choice when it comes to the seats it contested from.
There was a similar calculation behind the BJP not even fielding candidates in Kashmir in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year, with the party choosing to avoid an embarrassment ahead of the Assembly elections.
The party’s best performance in the Assembly elections was in Gurez and Habbakadal seats, where it finished second.
Located on the Line of Control with Pakistan, Gurez, with a little over 21,000 voters, was also the only constituency where the BJP did not lose its security deposit. In 2014, the party had not contested the North Kashmir seat. This time, the BJP gave the National Conference (NC) a scare in Gurez, standing second, getting 40% of the votes, and losing by hardly a thousand votes.
BJP candidate Faqeer Mohammad Khan and the NC’s Nazir Ahmad Khan who contested this seat are old rivals, both having won it by narrow margins in the past.
In Habbakadal constituency in Srinagar, the BJP came second but lost its security deposit as it got only 2,899 votes. Home to around 20,000 Kashmiri Pandit voters – the highest in J&K – the constituency had several Kashmiri Pandits among 16 candidates in the fray.
The BJP also fielded a Pandit, Ashok Kumar Bhat, who lost to Shamim Firdaus of the NC. She won by securing just 12,437 votes, indicating how the votes were split between the 16 candidates.
Even in 2014, the BJP had come in second in Habbakadal, behind the NC and getting 22% of votes. This was the only constituency where the BJP did not lose its deposit then.
In both 2014 and 2024, however, Habbakadal saw very low voter turnouts, at around 20-21%.
The BJP stood third in the constituencies of Bijbehara and Anantnag East, and fourth in Shopian and Channapora, while in eight constituencies, it finished fifth. In Bandipora, it came in 12th, with just over 1,000 votes, while its candidate in Eidgah, Srinagar, secured the least number of votes (479) among all BJP candidates.
Eidgah had seen the highest polling of all seats falling in Srinagar, with the NC’s Mubarak Gul and the PDP’s Khurshid Alam in a fierce contest. Gul won, with Alam coming third behind an Independent. Bandipora was one of the 10 constituencies where a Jamaat-e-Islami-backed candidate was in the race as an Independent. The Congress won the seat.
In 2014, the BJP had got less than a thousand votes in 12 constituencies, with its Zadibal candidate securing only 360 votes. This time, there were only two seats where it got less than a thousand votes.
The Valley decisively voted in favour of the National Conference-Congress, with the CPI(M) contesting one seat as part of the alliance. Of the 47 seats in Kashmir, the combine won 41, even though the NC’s overall vote share at 23.43% was behind the BJP’s.
All these numbers have to be seen against the fact that the electoral landscape of J&K has changed post-delimitation from 2014, with 43 seats in Jammu (compared to 37 in 2014) and 47 in Kashmir (compared to 46 earlier).
BJP supporters attend a rally addressed by PM Narendra Modi in Srinagar. (Express file photo by Shuaib Masoodi) 
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