In erstwhile separatist hotbed Sopore, a crowded PDP vs NC vs Congress battle

The posters of various contenders are seen across the town amid vehicles blaring party anthems, while its markets are also covered in election paraphernalia.

Travelling between villages in the Watlab area on Friday, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s Sopore candidate Irfan Lone’s cavalcade passes under the banners of the BJP, National Conference (NC), Congress, Apni Party and Awami Ittehad Party, among others.

Lone’s car also crosses NC candidate Irshad Rasool Kar’s convoy. Workers of both parties wave and cheer each other on. The town’s residents, who are not used to loud campaigns, take a good look at both the candidates but do not seem to give away much about their preferences.

In the 2014 Assembly polls, the Sopore seat was won by the Congress’s Abdul Rashid Dar, who defeated the PDP’s Nazir Ahmad Naikoo. This time, the Congress has fielded Dar again. While the Congress is in a pre-poll alliance with the NC, both have fielded candidates in Sopore for a “friendly fight” after failing to settle on a common candidate for the seat.

Sopore is part of the Baramulla parliamentary seat, where AIP president Engineer Rashid, who had been in jail in a terror funding case, defeated NC vice-president Omar Abdullah by over two lakh votes in the recent Lok Sabha polls.

For the Assembly polls, Rashid’s AIP is backing Musaleen Aajir, an advocate in Sopore. There are altogether 20 candidates in the fray in this seat.

The long list of candidates do not seem to deter Lone. He says he is confident “that his appeal as a young leader will provide people hope”. He underlines that “unemployment is one concern that the youth of Kashmir speak about” and says he is “best placed” to understand and address the issue. He adds that in this election young people “are choosing political empowerment and are therefore engaging with candidates as they haven’t before”.

The one main hurdle for Lone seems to be the resentment against the PDP’s alliance with the BJP in 2014. The NC and the Congress are seizing on this in their campaigns in order to corner the Lone and the PDP.

Lone, however, tells The Indian Express that it was “party president Mehbooba Mufti’s resistance to the BJP” in their partnership that led to the fall of their alliance government in June 2018.

He travels across villages before stopping in the main town to address a gathering of young men.

At the main Chowk in Sopore, he climbs atop a vehicle with a microphone to make his pitch to those present.

Lone invokes the memory of PDP founder Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and says the party has “ensured the release of 12,000 jailed young men”. A business graduate, Lone tells the young people in the crowd that he will work on education, development and economic issues.
“I am asking for a chance to take Sopore forward. Our mainstay is the apple industry that deserves urgent attention. We have one of the largest fruit mandis in the country and we need to be sending this apple abroad,” he says.
While Lone speaks to the crowd, other candidates also pass by.

“One can’t imagine that this is the town of Syed Ali Shah Geelani (one of J&K’s most influential separatist leaders)” an onlooker says on the heat generated by the elections in Sopore this time.