Questions hover over the way forward for Sajad Lone’s Peoples Convention, Altaf Bhukari’s Apni Celebration, and Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Celebration (DPAP) that had been projected as an alternative choice to “dynastic politics” in Jammu and Kashmir and sometimes labelled because the BJP’s “proxies” after their dismal present within the not too long ago concluded Lok Sabha polls.
Of the 72 Meeting segments in Jammu and Kashmir that make up the 4 parliamentary constituencies of Baramulla, Srinagar, Anantnag-Rajouri, and Udhampur, solely the Peoples Convention secured a lead in an Meeting section — Handwara in Baramulla — that’s the residence constituency of Lone.
The result has solid severe doubts about the way forward for the Apni Celebration and the DPAP and might also pressure the BJP to rethink its technique of supporting them.
The Lok Sabha outcomes have come as a impolite shock to the Apni Celebration as two of its candidates — Mohammad Ashraf Mir and Zafar Iqbal Manhas — forfeited deposits in Srinagar and Anantnag-Rajouri respectively, particularly at a time when Bukhari had been projecting himself as the long run CM of Jammu and Kashmir. After a poor present within the District Improvement Council (DDC) polls in 2020, the celebration had hoped to raised its efficiency within the Lok Sabha elections with the BJP’s assist and a beneficial administration.
Regardless of the BJP’s large push within the Pahari belt of Pir Panjal, the celebration couldn’t handle a lead in any of the 36 Meeting segments underneath the 2 Lok Sabha seats, and emerged runner-up in solely 9 segments. It managed to get 1.42 lakh votes (13.94% vote share) in Anantnag-Rajouri, of which about 91,986 (65%) of its votes got here from the Pir Panjal vary. In Srinagar, the celebration managed solely a 9.7% vote share.
Each Mir and Manhas even didn’t safe a lead from their residence Meeting segments of Lal Chowk in Srinagar and Shopian. Mir is a former two-time PDP MLA from Sonawar and defeated former Jammu and Kashmir CM Omar Abdullah in 2014.
The DPAP appears to have had a worse outing as three of its candidates — Saleem Parray (Anantnag-Rajouri), former Congress stalwart G M Saroori (Udhampur) and Amir Bhat (Srinagar) — forfeited their deposits and the celebration recorded a single-digit vote share whereas not managing a lead in any of the 54 Meeting segments falling underneath the three seats.
Saroori managed a vote share of three.6% and didn’t safe a lead from the Inderwal Meeting section, which he had represented three consecutive occasions in 2002, 2008, and 2014. Then again, Bhat and Parray managed vote shares of two.23% and a pair of.45% respectively.
The Peoples Convention’s efficiency too was dismal as Sajad Lone barely managed to avoid wasting his deposit in Baramulla, polling 980 votes greater than the required quantity. The celebration’s total vote share fell from 22.7% in 2019 to 16.75% whereas in Kupwara, which is seen as Lone’s stronghold, it fell from 27.7% to 23.8%. Whereas Lone himself contested the polls this time, in 2019 he had fielded Raja Ajaz, a political greenhorn from Baramulla.
In distinction, Unbiased candidate Engineer Rashid, who hails from Kupwara and defeated Abdullah by greater than 1 lakh votes, elevated his vote share from 22.4% 5 years in the past to 45.7%. In Kupwara, Rashid’s vote share virtually doubled from 22.5% to 44%.