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Last December, the Supreme Court set September 30, 2024 as the deadline for holding the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, which would mark its first in a decade.
The Assembly segment-wise results in J&K in the recent Lok Sabha elections show that if the Assembly polls were held in the Union Territory (UT) today, the National Conference (NC) would emerge as the single largest party and, with support from the INDIA bloc allies Congress and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), have just enough seats to form their coalition government in the 90-member House.
The former state has not had an Assembly election since 2014 and came under the central rule since June 2018, when the BJP withdrew its support from their Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP coalition government. In August 2019, Article 370, which granted special status to J&K, was abrogated, and the state split into two UTs, J&K and Ladakh.
The Lok Sabha polls in J&K’s five seats saw the BJP and NC each win two seats, with one seat going to an Independent, jailed leader Sheikh Abdul Rashid popularly known as Engineer Rashid.
The vote shares stood at 24.36% for the BJP, 22.3% for the NC, 19.38% for the Congress, and 8.48% for the PDP.
The Assembly segment-wise voting data shows that the NC and BJP’s performances would make them the frontrunners if the Assembly elections were held now. While neither party would win an outright majority, the NC would be in the lead having won the most votes in 34 Assembly segments, followed by the BJP in 29 segments. The Congress was the leading party in seven Assembly seats, the PDP in five seats, and the Sajjad Lone-led People’s Conference (PC) in one seat. Engineer Rashid, however, led in 14 segments.
The INDIA bloc, which comprises the Congress, NC and PDP, would thus have a combined tally of 46 Assembly segments, putting the alliance just clear of the 45-seat majority mark.
However, it is worth noting that the BJP and Congress only contested in the Jammu and Udhampur Lok Sabha seats and will likely contest more seats in the Kashmir Valley in the Assembly polls. While the NC, as a Congress ally, contested all three Valley seats, the PDP contested just the Anantnag-Rajouri and Srinagar Lok Sabha seats after failing to reach a seat-sharing agreement with the NC. It remains to be seen if the NC and PDP will be able to strike a deal to contest the Assembly polls in an alliance, though the NC-Congress tie-up is likely to remain intact.
A similar Assembly segment-level breakdown of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls shows that the NC and the BJP each led in 30 segments, followed by the Congress in 16, the PDP in four, and the PC in two. Independents had then led in five segments.
In the 2014 Assembly polls, which was a four-way contest, the PDP had emerged as the single-largest party with 28 seats in the pre-delimitation 87-member House from a vote share of 23.85%. The BJP had finished as the runner-up with 25 seats from a 26.23% vote share and had extended its support to the PDP. The NC and the Congress, which had been allies until these elections, contested separately and won 15 and 12 seats, respectively. While the NC had secured 21.14% of the vote share, the Congress had managed 18.36%. Other parties, including the CPI(M) and PC, and Independents had won the remaining seven seats.
