BJP starts with a jerk in J&K: First list cancelled, pruned as old guard ‘protests’

The party’s previous list had 44 names, for constituencies across the three phases in which voting is being held in J&K. The BJP then announced it was withdrawing the list, and deleted it from all its official channels.

There was no word from the BJP on why the previous list was withdrawn. However, sources said anger among supporters of the old guard forced the party to go back to the drawing board.

In Jammu, BJP workers held protests at the party office and spoke openly about their disappointment. In the Valley, long-time BJP workers accused the party of ignoring leaders who had given it “a foothold” in Kashmir, when “nobody was ready to be associated with it”. Minha Lateef, the BJP’s lone District Development Council (DDC) member in Pulwama, South Kashmir, announced her resignation after the party announced Syed Showkat Gayoor Andrabi as its candidate for the Pampore constituency in Pulwama.

While 16 of the 24 seats voting in the first phase fall in Kashmir, eight are in Jammu.

With the nomination window closing, BJP leaders in Kashmir are apprehensive that the party might not contest the eight seats voting in the first phase for which it did not name candidates Monday. These eight constituencies include all the three seats in South Kashmir’s Kulgam, two seats in Anantnag and Pulwama each, and the Zainpora seat of Shopian.

The BJP, which did not field candidates in any of the three Kashmir constituencies in the Lok Sabha elections, had said it would contest all the Assembly seats in J&K. So far, barring one name, all the candidates it has announced for the Valley seats are new faces.

The BJP’s initial list of 44 suggested that at least three former Cabinet ministers – including ex-deputy chief ministers Nirmal Sharma and Kavinder Gupta – would not be fielded by the party this time.

Nirmal Singh won the 2014 Assembly elections from Billawar constituency of Jammu. The original BJP list named Satish Sharma as the candidate from Billawar.

Kavinder Gupta, also a former Speaker, won in 2014 from Gandhi Nagar in Jammu, defeating Congress stalwart Raman Bhalla. The constituency is named R S Pora-Jammu South seat now, after delimitation, and the party’s original list had Narinder Singh Raina as its candidate from the seat.

The third former member of the Council of Ministers missing from the BJP’s first list was Sat Paul Sharma, also a former state chief of the party, who won in 2014 from Jammu West. The BJP has fielded Arvind Gupta for the Jammu West seat.

A BJP leader in Jammu told The Indian Express: “The tickets have been given arbitrarily and there is anger among the workers. The people who have given their lifetime for the party have been left out and turncoats have been preferred… The hallmark of the BJP was that it always believed in merit over connections. But merit has been ignored this time.”

Among those who moved to the BJP from other parties and have got tickets are Devender Singh Rana, former National Conference (NC) leader and the brother of Union Minister of State Jitendra Singh; ex-Congress minister Sham Lal Sharma; and former NC minister S S Salathia.

The withdrawn list had Rana as the BJP candidate from Nagrota in Jammu, a seat he won in 2014 on the NC ticket; Sharma from Jammu North; and Salathia from Samba.

On the resignation of the BJP DDC member from Pulwama, a party leader in Srinagar said her reaction was justified. “She (Minha) won the elections when nobody (from the BJP) could. It was time to reward her for her performance… But we saw that a person who joined the party only a few months ago got the ticket.”

Another party leader also talked of having stood by the BJP when “associating with it was a taboo”. “Altaf Thakur couldn’t attend his father’s funeral because he was associated with the BJP. But the party has not fielded any candidate from Tral (his home constituency).”

A party leader in Srinagar said that several corporators may follow the Pulwama DDC member’s example and resign. “Out of the eight names the party has announced from Kashmir, only two-three deserved a ticket,” the leader said.

Among those fielded by the party from the Kashmir seats is senior leader Sofi Mohammad Yousuf from Bijbehara, the only old face in the BJP list. While Yousuf traditionally contested from Pahalgam, some of Pahalgam’s villages are part of Bijbehara now after delimitation.

Yousuf will face PDP chief Mehbooba’s daughter Iltija, who is making her poll debut from her family’s traditional seat Bijbehara.

Besides Yousuf, the BJP has fielded Veer Saraf from Anantnag-East; Shokwat Gayoor from Pampore; Arshid Bhat from Rajpora; Javid Ahmad Qadri from Shopian, and Mohammad Rafiq Wani from Anantnag-West. From the reserved seat of Kokernag, the party has fielded Choudhary Roushan Hussain Gujjar.

Among the Jammu seats, the BJP has fielded its former minister Sunil Sharma from Padder. Sharma won in 2014 on a BJP ticket from Kishtwar; the party has fielded Shagun Parihar, the niece of BJP leader Anil Parihar who was killed in a militant attack, from Kishtwar this time.

BJP vice-president Shakti Raj Parihar is the party candidate from Doda-West; he won the seat in 2014 too.

The party has fielded two Muslim faces in the Jammu seats. Tariq Keen will contest from Inderwal and Salim Bhat from Banihal.

The BJP also put out 40 names as its top campaigners for the J&K elections. Apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and BJP president J P Nadda, they include Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Gen (Retd) V K Singh.