For decades, Ganderbal has been a family bastion of the Abdullahs. Since National Conference (NC) founder and Omar Abdullah's grandfather Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah first contested the polls from the Assembly seat in 1977, the party has represented the seat six out of seven times. Five of these times, the winning candidate has been an Abdullah family member. The one time an Abdullah candidate lost from here was 2002, when Omar was defeated by Peoples Democratic Party's (PDP’s) Qazi Mohammad Afzal, by around 3,000 votes. Though he regained the seat in 2008, the shock defeat of 2002 lingers, with Ganderbal no longer seen as an invincible Abdullah fortress. This was one reason attributed to Omar’s decision to contest from two seats last time, in 2014 – the same as he is doing now. In 2014, the decision proved fortuitous for the then sitting chief minister as he lost Sonawar and only managed to win Beerwah by less than a thousand votes. He had taken the surprise decision to skip Ganderbal then after the NC candidate trailed behind the PDP’s in the Assembly segment in the Lok Sabha elections that year, followed by desertion of several local senior NC leaders. This time, Omar is back in Ganderbal, but is also fighting from Budgam which neighbours Beerwah. Significantly, the two seats – both of which will vote in the second phase of the J&K polls on Wednesday – saw the maximum votes for the NC among Assembly segments in the recent Lok Sabha polls. Ganderbal falls under the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat, and the NC’s winning candidate, Aga Ruhullah, secured more than 50% of the votes polled in the Assembly segment. Budgam falls under the Baramulla parliamentary seat, and while Omar himself lost from there in the Lok Sabha elections, he still got 45% of the polled votes in the Assembly segment. However, things are not expected to be easy for Omar this time. Despite Ganderbal being the family turf, he is seen as a non-native, along with two other candidates in the race – the PDP’s Bashir Ahmad Mir and the Awami Ittehad Party’s (AIP’s) Sheikh Ashiq. There is a candidate in the race who belongs to Ganderbal, and it is Ishfaq Jabbar. In 2014, after Omar vacated the seat, it was Jabbar who won it for the NC. No longer in the party and contesting as an Independent, Jabbar is expected to get a sizeable number of votes. Even the PDP’s Mir won’t be a pushover, having long been the PDP's face in the neighbouring Kangan seat, where he always gave a tough fight to senior NC leader and its Gujjar face, Mian Altaf. With Kangan now an ST-reserved seat, Mir had to shift base, and is seen as the prime challenger to Omar in Ganderbal. Mian Altaf is now an MP, having won from Anantnag-Rajouri in the recent Lok Sabha polls. Ashiq, the AIP candidate, is also a known face, having been president of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries in the past. What Omar will be hoping for is a division of the anti-NC votes among the above three candidates, besides 11 other, lesser-known politicians in the race. They include Sarjan Ahmad Barkati, the jailed separatist leader who had emerged as the face of the protests that rocked Kashmir following the killing of Burhan Wani. But the Barkati family that is campaigning for him, particularly his daughter, have been more focused on the Beerwah Assembly segment, the other seat Barkati is contesting from. Omar has alleged that Barkati has been propped up by the BJP to counter him, and that the separatist jumped into the fray from Beerwah expecting Omar to contest from there. Omar instead chose Central Kashmir’s Budgam, some 35 km from Ganderbal, which has also been a stronghold of the NC. Since 1967, the party has won the seat eight out of nine times. The only time it did not win was in 1972, when the NC did not contest the polls. Aga Ruhullah, the NC’s newly elected Srinagar MP and Shia leader, is its three-time MLA from here – 2002, 2008 and 2014. Omar’s challenge in Budgam is ensuring that the Shia votes do not consolidate against him, with the Assembly seat’s results often determined by this in the past. Apart from the fact that Ruhullah is not in the race, the NC is seen as having sidelined its other Shia leader, Aga Mehmood, to give the ticket to Omar. While the party has managed to convince the sulking Aga Mehmood to campaign for Omar, it still can’t be sure that would be enough for the community. Besides, the PDP has put up a Shia candidate, Aga Muntazir Mehdi, who also happens to be Ruhullah's cousin. In the 2014 Assembly elections, Muntazir’s father Aga Syed Hassan had been propped up against Ruhullah from Budgam but had failed to get traction for his appeal to not vote for the NC candidate. The message from the community was that while they revered Hassan, they had to stand by a Shia candidate. The Shias comprise around 25% of the population of the Budgam Assembly seat, and have traditionally voted in larger numbers than the Sunnis. An NC leader admitted being nervous about Aga Mehmood staying away. "But now that he has relented, we hope to have smooth sailing.” In his campaign, Omar talked about larger issues such as Article 370, “the importance of keeping the BJP out” and Kashmiri identity. But he also raised smaller developmental issues of the constituents. The NC vice-chief also left none in doubt about what the election means for him, having just suffered a Lok Sabha defeat. Omar ran a frenetic election campaign, kicking it off by taking off his cap and holding it in his hand – in that ultimate gesture of humility – as he asked people to vote for him.
