Srinagar: As the campaigning for first phase of assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir wraps up on Monday, the concluding days of the campaign have become increasingly dynamic.
The National Conference (NC), People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and Congress are grappling with unexpected challenges that emerged during the elections or just before elections were announced a month before.
The political landscape has been significantly altered by the unexpected entry of the banned Jamaat-e-Islami and other separatist leaders, as well as the rise of the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) led by Baramulla MP Sheikh Abdul Rashid, also known as Engineer Rashid.
Rashid, who defeated the NC vice-president and former chief minister in the June Lok Sabha elections, was granted interim bail by the Supreme Court last week to campaign for his candidates in the assembly polls. He was in Tihar Jail from 2019 over alleged terror funding charges.
In response to Rashid’s growing influence, NC and PDP leaders have launched a counter-offensive, branding Rashid as a “BJP proxy” intended to split the vote. This has led to a dramatic shift in the political narrative.
Omar Abdullah, who previously projected that the NC-Congress alliance would form the government, is now concerned that the BJP might gain an advantage if the vote is fragmented.
Political analysts suggest that the traditional parties, despite their long-standing dominance, appear to have underestimated the emerging dynamics. “It seems they were too complacent and did not adequately prepare for these new developments,” one analyst remarked.
“Till recently the NC and PDP believed that only they were the real key players in Kashmir’s electoral politics. NC, confident of its supremacy, was aiming at targeting the PDP to weaken it further in elections. But the new challenges, like the one posed by Engineer Rashid, have unnerved them,” he said.
Zahoor Malik, a seasoned observer of Kashmir politics, noted that the traditional parties are scrambling to adjust to the new realities of the electoral field. “They failed to anticipate the sudden and dramatic entry of new players like Rashid and the Jamaat-e-Islami members. Their lack of preparedness has caught them off guard,” Malik said.
With polling set for September 18, 25, and October 1 across 90 assembly constituencies in J&K, and counting scheduled for October 8, the traditional parties must quickly adapt to the evolving political environment or risk losing their grip on the region’s political landscape.