As PAGD and I.N.D.I.A. bloc falter in J&K, it’s advantage BJP

Public spats and internal rifts have damaged the once-unified People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), exposing the underlying power struggles and ideological differences that simmered beneath the surface.

After months of discontent within the National Conference (NC) and People's Democratic Party (PDP) over seat sharing for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) has literally collapsed, with the two arch rivals trading charges against each other in public.

The NC and the PDP were the two pillars of the PAGD, which once stood as a symbol of unity; a coalition built upon the shared ideals of regional autonomy and the Kashmiri identity after the abrogation of the special status under Article 370 on August 5, 2019. 

On August 4, 2019, a day before the Union government announced the abrogation of Article 370, political parties in Kashmir, except the BJP, met at the residence of NC president Farooq Abdullah at Gupkar Road in Srinagar and issued a joint statement defending Article 370. Since then, the joint statement is known as the 'Gupkar Declaration’.

However, public spats and internal rifts have damaged the once-unified front, exposing the underlying power struggles and ideological differences that simmered beneath the surface.

In August last year, PDP’s youth president Waheed Parra, while referring to the NC, said, “Those who were responsible for 1987 (election) rigging, made SOG (special operations group) and pushed youth towards guns by depriving democratic agency over decades are now begging for elections and an alliance in New Delhi.”

Last month, amid the alleged “rigging” of the general election in Pakistan, the leaders of the NC and the PDP again exchanged barbs, accusing each other of electoral malpractice in the past. Mehbooba’s daughter Iltija triggered the exchange with an oblique reference to the role of the NC in the alleged rigging of Assembly elections in 1987.

The NC reacted by accusing the PDP founder and then Union Home minister late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed of plunging J&K into turmoil by appointing Jagmohan Malhotra as governor of the state in 1990.

After the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (I.N.D.I.A), an alliance of 35 political parties, was formed to take on the BJP in 2024 general elections, the NC openly stated that it was not ready to concede even an inch to the PDP. The NC is adamant on not leaving even one among the three LS seats in the Kashmir Valley, won by the party in the previous parliamentary polls, to the PDP. Both the NC and the PDP are part of the I.N.D.I.A bloc.

Last week, NC vice-president and former chief minister Omar Abdullah said he would have never joined the Congress-led bloc if he knew that he would have to weaken his own party for Mehbooba Mufti's PDP.

Defending his decision to sideline the PDP, he accused Mehbooba of targeting the NC in rallies and tweets and even chided that the “number 3 party has no right to claim any seats.” He was referring to the results of 2019 LS elections when Mehbooba finished third in the Anantnag seat.

In a swift response, Mehbooba said that the NC’s decision was “disappointing” and a “setback to the hopes of the people of J&K”. She also accused the NC of reducing their PAGD to a “joke”. “I regret that what we nurtured for five years has been shattered,” she said.

Many in Kashmir see the NC’s decision as an attempt to sideline the PDP, which has strong bastions in south and central Kashmir, for the much-awaited Assembly polls. The PAGD did not work electorally as during the November-December 2020 District Development Council (DDC) polls in J&K the parties realised that they compete on the same electoral landscape for their individual survival.

The rift within the INDIA bloc partners is not only giving a direct advantage to the BJP in Jammu and Udhampur, which it won in 2014 and 2019, but also putting the saffron party in an advantageous position in Anantnag-Rajouri and Ladakh seats in the absence of an NC-PDP-Congress alliance.

An unofficial BJP ally (in this case Sajjad Lone’s People’s Conference) could even emerge as a key competitor on north Kashmir’s Baramulla LS seat.

However, alliance or no alliance for the Lok Sabha polls is not the endgame in J&K, as the Union Territory is bracing for the Assembly polls anytime this year.

In recent months, the Abdullahs have softened their stand against the BJP, clearly indicating that they are keeping the option of a post-poll alliance with the saffron party open, should such a situation arise. 

Recently, veteran politician and former Union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad accused the Abdullah family of holding clandestine meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah during the night to avoid the public gaze. He even alleged that the Abdullahs were taken into confidence regarding the revocation of Article 370, and “they had even suggested placing leaders in the Valley under house arrest”.

Amid all the mudslinging in Kashmir politics, one thing is clear: it is unlikely that the PAGD would put up a united face, reiterating its demand for the restoration of J&K’s pre-2019 position in future.

As things are shaping up, it is clear that Kashmir-based political parties have started to reconcile with the changes brought in the erstwhile state following the reading down of Article 370. They are now only focusing on reviving their political fortunes, for which being on the right side of the BJP is a must.

However, it remains to be seen which way the BJP leans. The saffron party will test the waters in LS polls and, if it feels confident of forming a government on its own in the only Muslim-majority region of the country in the Assembly polls, the party may dump both the NC and the PDP.

The two Kashmir-based parties now find themselves at an impasse, unable to reconcile their diverging agendas and ambitions. With each passing day, as the rift widens, it casts a shadow of uncertainty over the political landscape of Kashmir.