Jammu and Kashmir: What is the BJP’s twin strategy for the union territory?

Campaigning by political parties came to a stop on Sunday, 29 September, amidst reports of a terror attack in Rajouri, the third in as many days in the Jammu region.

In North Kashmir, several parties and candidates did not campaign, choosing to mourn for the Shia Muslim leader of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, assassinated in Beirut by Israel a day ago. This was preceded by spontaneous outpouring of grief by people in the Valley on Saturday, 28 September, when Hezbollah confirmed Israel’s claim that their leader had been targeted and killed.

Polling in Srinagar itself, where Prime Minister Modi addressed a large rally, was held in the second phase on 25 September. The voter turnout was disappointingly low at 29 per cent, a sharp drop from the 38 per cent recorded in the Lok Sabha election barely four months ago.

Prime Minister Modi and home minister Amit Shah have in their campaign targeted the Congress–National Conference alliance and accused them of toeing Pakistan’s line on Kashmir.

Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, BJP leaders have been muted about the vociferous demands for a ‘Kashmir solution’ and referendum from Engineer Rashid’s Awami Ittehad Party and the Jamaat-i-Islami, which together have put up 46 candidates in the Kashmir valley.

While the Congress and the National Conference have confined their campaign to the restoration of statehood and of Articles 370 and 35A, the Awami Ittehad and Jamaat-i-Islami — the former a new party and the latter banned till recently for its alleged separatist rhetoric — have been more vocal and more ambitious.

However, the prime minister and Amit Shah spared no words to address or even take cognisance of their demands while campaigning in the Valley.

The BJP has, however, been vocal in condemning the two ‘separatist’ parties in Jammu. The strategy clearly is to ensure anti-BJP voters in the valley will rally around the two parties that many believe have been propped up by the BJP. By doing so, the BJP hopes to make inroads into the vote bank of the formidable Congress–NC alliance and ensure that many of the candidates put up by the Jamaat and the Awami Ittehad win, deny a clear majority to the Congress–NC combine.

In the Jammu region, the saffron campaign has revolved around Pakistan, terrorism and separatists like the Jamaat and Awami Ittehad to drive fear into the Hindus and rally them around to the BJP's side. This dual strategy explains the multiplicity of conspiracy theories around the BJP's ‘grand strategy’ to win a majority and install a ‘BJP chief minister’ in Jammu and Kashmir for the very first time.

Whether this will eventually succeed in overshadowing the issues on the ground will be seen when the results are declared.

Amit Shah’s claim that only the BJP was in a position to return full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, indicating that a double engine government in the state will be necessary for statehood, has not gone down well in the valley. Both people and leaders have fumed to say that statehood was not a gift they expected the BJP to bestow.

Jairam Ramesh, Congress MP and head of communication, pointed out on Sunday that the prime minister has neither explained nor taken any responsibility for stripping the Muslim majority state of its statehood.

‘On 5 August 2019, he failed to address the Parliament on this matter. After 2019, the usually jet-setting non-biological divinity failed to visit Jammu until 2022, and the Kashmir Valley until 2024.

‘In the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign, he gave up to 41 scripted interviews — including with regional publications across the country — but not a single one in Jammu and Kashmir. The PM thinks himself above accountability to the voters of Jammu who have supported him in consecutive elections,’ the Congress leader posted on X on Sunday.

Priyanka Gandhi was quick to deride the BJP's claim that it was the party that could actually restore statehood for the downgraded union territory.

Perhaps convinced that BJP will receive little support in the Valley, the BJP and the prime minister made no attempt to address the problems of the apple growers of Kashmir.

The union government’s policy of allowing duty-free import of apples, with no regard to the quality, have hit the apple trade in Kashmir hard. Most orchard owners are being forced to sell the apples at throw-away prices.

In addition, fake pesticide has flooded the market but the government has not heeded the longstanding demand to set up a laboratory to test the pesticides being sold.

There is discontent in Jammu. Since August 2019, business and trade have suffered. The stoppage of the Durbar, the secretariat moving to Jammu in winter, new trains up to Katra allowing pilgrims visiting Vaishno Devi to bypass Jammu — all have hit businesses in the region hard.

However, the BJP’s anti-terrorism poll rhetoric and fearmongering around ‘Kashmiri hegemony’, ‘separatism’ and ‘Pakistan’—issues that it has not obviously bothered to raise in the valley — the party hopes, will be enough to give it a head start.