Umer Maqbool 
Srinagar: In its worst-ever electoral performance in the Jammu region, which was considered its bastion ever since its foray into the electoral arena of Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress managed to win only one seat.
It contested a higher number of seats here than the National Conference (NC), with which it was in a pre-poll alliance.
The party’s poor performance has thrown up a challenge for the NC to ensure representation for mainland Jammu in the government likely to be headed by former chief minister Omar Abdullah.
Worst-ever performance
As per its seat-sharing arrangement with the NC, the Congress fielded candidates in 29 out of 43 seats in the Jammu region. The NC expected that the Congress would perform well and win some seats in mainland Jammu. However, the party fared badly and managed to win only one seat in the region and that too in the hinterland.
The party failed to win any seat among more than 30 Hindu-majority segments in Jammu. All 19 of its Hindu candidates in Jammu lost. Its lone winner from the region was Iftikar Ahmed, who won the Rajouri seat with a narrow margin of 1,414 votes.
According to Election Commission data, this was the worst-ever performance of the Congress in the Jammu region since it contested the first state election in J&K in 1967.
The poll body’s records show that the grand old party managed to win 27 seats from Jammu in 1967, 28 in 1972, ten in 1977, 23 in 1983, 20 in 1987, four in 1996, 15 in 2002, 13 in 2008 and five in 2014.
According to political observers, the party miserably failed in the region due to multiple reasons, including its selection of candidates and poor campaigning.
Rekha Choudhary, former professor of political science at University of Jammu, told The Wire that the Congress’s national leadership could not understand that their main stakes lied in the Jammu region.
“They used all their energies either in Haryana or went to Kashmir and didn’t pay attention to Jammu,” she said.
She added that the party did not properly plan its selection of candidates.
“There was lot of confusion in some constituencies that were affected by delimitation. In this situation, what was required a clear decision at an early time as to which candidate was to be given which constituency. Instead, the decision was taken at the last moment, which did not given candidates much time to connect with their respective constituencies,” she said.
She further said that the Congress failed to campaign as a party and could not take advantage of the situation in which residents of Jammu were looking for an alternative.
“Every candidate was left to campaign for himself/herself. They didn’t campaign as a party. There was no Congress narrative. They did not take advantage of the issues confronting the people. They also failed to take advantage of the people looking for an alternative,” she said.
A Congress leader, wishing anonymity, said that the “insistence” of Congress leaders like Tara Chand (a former deputy chief minister) and Raman Bhalla (a former minister) to fight from “safer seats” hurt the party’s prospects.
He said that Satish Sharma, who won from the Chhamb constituency of Jammu district as an independent candidate, had asked for a party ticket from the seat, but the leadership preferred Chand, who had earlier contested from this seat when it was reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates.
He also said the party fielded Bhalla, who earlier contested from Gandhinagar (now Bahu), from R.S. Pura-Jammu South and shifted T.S. Tony, who had good support in R.S. Pura-Jammu South, to Bahu.
“This proved politically fatal for both of them,” he said.
Satish Sharma told The Wire that the poor selection of candidates was responsible for the party’s disastrous performance in the Jammu region.
“My father Madan Lal Sharma represented the Chhamb segment in 1983 and 1987. This constituency comprises 80% upper castes after it was de-reserved [during delimitation] in 2022. I was ready to help Tara Chand in the Akhnoor constituency, but he was adamant about fighting from here due to his ego. That is why I contested as an independent,” he said.
Also read: The NC-Congress Alliance in J&K Has a (Very Few) Hindu MLAs Problem
Poor performance throws challenge to new government
The performance of Congress candidates in Jammu has the Abdullah-led NC in a tight spot over ensuring representation for Jammu in the council of ministers.
While two Hindu candidates of the NC won from Ramban and Nowshera – both in Jammu’s hinterland – and another NC ‘rebel’ from the community won from Inderwal, also a hinterland area, the main issue before the alliance government would be to ensure representation for mainland Jammu, where the BJP has maintained its grip since 2014.
Out of the 24 seats in mainland Jammu, the alliance partners failed to win any seat, with the BJP bagging 22 seats and the two remaining seats secured by independents.
These two independents are Satish Sharma (Chhamb) and Rameshwar Singh (Bani).
Sources told The Wire that the NC was in touch with a few independents and that they could join the party as well as the government to give representation to mainland Jammu.
In total, seven independents won, of which five are from Jammu and two from Kashmir. Of these winners from Jammu, two are from mainland Jammu and three from the hinterland.
Abdullah, who is set to head the government, today hinted at giving adequate representation to those areas where his coalition’s partners have fewer MLAs.
He said special emphasis will be placed on giving a sense of ownership and voice within the government to those areas where MLAs in the coalition are fewer in number.
This article was edited to correct the number of seats the Congress won in Kashmir and in Ladakh in 2014.