In Jammu, BJP gets its house in order, Congress fumbles its advantage

However, as the J&K polls hit the mid-way point Wednesday, with the second of three phases voting, the Congress appears to have frittered away the advantage. A combination of infighting – which at times pushed the release of names to the eve of nomination deadline ending – a lacklustre campaign by the party and the BJP’s aggressive fightback has left the Congress looking like the jaded one. Even the BJP’s gamble of dropping senior leaders and former ministers appears to have worked in staving off some of the anti-incumbency.

Of the total 90 Assembly constituencies in the Union Territory, the Congress is contesting 32 in alliance with the National Conference, which is fighting 51. They are in friendly contests in five seats, and have left one each for the CPI(M)’s M Y Tarigami (Kulgan in Kashmir), and National Panthers Party-India’s Harsh Dev Singh (Chenani in Jammu). Of the 32 seats in its kitty, the Congress is contesting 29 in Jammu (including four of the five ‘friendly fight’ seats). In Kashmir, it is contesting nine seats (including two ‘friendly fight’ seats).

According to Professor Hari Om, a retired Jammu University professor and political observer, given the Congress campaign, the BJP may even pull off a repeat of its 2014 performance.

In private, senior Congress leaders admit the candidate list got its caste calculations wrong. In a province where Brahmins and Mahajans are in sizeable numbers in a number of constituencies, the party has fielded only two Brahmins – one in Udhampur West and another in Billawar – and not a single Mahajan leader.

In a damage-control bid, the party later announced two “acting working presidents” in M K Bhardwaj (Brahmin) and Bano Mahajan.

Having replaced Vikar Rasool Wani, who belongs to Banihal in Jammu province, with Kashmir-based Tariq Hameed Karra as its J&K president, the Congress has also tried to get regional balance right by appointing two working presidents from Jammu region, Tara Chand and Raman Bhalla.

But two traditional Congress bastions, Chhamb and Akhnoor, capture the party’s continuing troubles in Jammu. Except for 1987 and 1996, when Akhnoor was won by the NC, and 2014 when the BJP won, the seat has voted for the Congress since 1962. The same holds true for Chhamb, which has been electing a Congress MLA since 1962, barring an Independent in 1977 and a BJP leader in 2014.

This time in Chhamb, though, former deputy CM Tara Chand is facing a stiff fight from Congress rebel Satish Sharma, whose father Madan Lal Sharma was a three-time MLA from the seat. Sharma Senior gave up the seat in the early 1990s when it became SC-reserved, giving it to his confidant Tara Chand. The latter won thrice successively, 1996 to 2014.

Meanwhile, Madan Lal moved to Akhnoor, from where he got elected in 2008. Later a two-time MP from the Poonch Lok Sabha constituency, he died in 2020.

Following the 2022 delimitation of J&K Assembly constituencies, Akhnoor became SC-reserved while Chhamb became open to all after nearly three decades.

Now the Congress has re-fielded Tara Chand from Chamb, ignoring the claims of Sharma’s son Satish, who has joined the fray as an Independent.

As per a resident of Akhnoor, Raman Kumar, the Congress had far better chances of victory from both the constituencies if it had fielded Tara Chand from ST-reserved Akhnoor and accommodated Satish Sharma in Chhamb.

A senior Congress leader who did not want to be named admitted the wrong candidate selection at places, saying it was either due to inadequate data or pressure from some senior leaders to contest from seats of their choice.

According to this leader, some senior leaders also ensured that erstwhile Congress colleagues who wanted to return to the party fold from Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Party were not accepted. Their reinduction could have brought in at least three more Assembly seats in Jammu province, he said, with two now contesting as Independents.

Other constituencies where the Congress choice has come up for questioning is R S Pura-Jammu South, from where the party has fielded former minister Raman Bhalla, and Bahu, where it has put up District Development Council member Taranjeet Singh Tony.

The two constituencies have been carved out of areas earlier falling under R S Pura, Gandhinagar and Nagrota constituencies.

Tony is seen as having a good hold in R S Pura, but he has got the Bahu seat. And while Bhalla has been picked for R S Pura-Jammu South, it’s Bahu that includes a sizeable portion of his erstwhile Gandhi Nagar constituency.

Similarly, in the newly created Shri Mata Vaishno Devi constituency, the Congress decision to field Bhupender Jamwal – who is a leader of the local porter and ponywallah bodies that operate along the trek to the shrine – has left old party workers angry.

Congress leaders also note with dismay that the party’s bigwigs have failed to cover large parts of Jammu province’s 43 Assembly seats. On the BJP side, everyone from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and party national president J P Nadda have held rallies, totalling over 30 already, with one more phase yet to go.

While Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday addressed his fifth rally in the Jammu region since the announcement of the polls – in Jammu city – Congress leaders say the party has failed to capture the gains from this, or the goodwill Gandhi enjoys here since his first Bharat Jodo Yatra. A Congress leader said that there is a huge demand for rallies by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, but they are clueless about her plans. He also questions the venue chosen for Gandhi’s Wednesday’s rally, saying local leaders had pushed for the border R S Pura seat instead of the local banquet hall in Jammu that has a capacity of not more than 3,000-4,000 people.

BJP pleased, ally NC worried

BJP chief spokesperson in J&K Sunil Sethi says the Congress is in “defeat mode” even before the elections have concluded, and that “with no issues for it to raise”, is talking of statehood, which has already been assured by PM Modi and Shah on the floor of the Parliament.

Listing achievements in J&K by the Modi government, he says it has assured creation of job opportunities for five lakh people, and mentions the removal of the toll plaza at Thandi Khui in Samba district at the instance of BJP.

A senior leader of the National Conference (NC), which is counting on ally Congress to pull its weight in Jammu, admits to being “worried” over how its campaign has progressed. According to the leader, the NC had been apprehensive about precisely this when seat-sharing talks were held and the Congress insisted on most of the seats falling in the plains of the Jammu province. “They were talking of constituencies without even having finalised the names of candidates,” the NC leader says.

Senior Congress leader and in-charge of the party’s J&K affairs Bharat Singh Solanki counters this, saying the Congress campaign is proceeding “very well’’, and claiming that Gandhi’s rallies have been attracting larger crowds than those seen at the rallies of Shah and other Union ministers.

Congress chief spokesperson Ravinder Sharma says there is no question of the BJP having caught up to it from behind. He talks of “an anti-BJP wave” due to the failure of the party to fulfill the promises made by it in 2014, such as jobs, end to terrorism and all-round development. “While terrorism has resurfaced in areas of Jammu region that had been peaceful for long, the number of educated unemployed youth has increased, and daily wagers are still awaiting regularisation. The BJP administration has also burdened people with new taxes and inflated power bills. ”