Rekha Chowdhary 
The 2024 Jammu and Kashmir assembly election is a very important milestone for National Conference (NC) for at least two different but related reasons. First, five years after the reading down of the special constitutional status of the state of J&K that led to the existential crisis for NC due to loss of its political narrative, it has emerged as a strong and resilient party. Second, after a gap of almost two decades, it has emerged as the dominant party in Kashmir’s politics.
After the special constitutional status was read down in 2019, mainstream parties of Kashmir faced existential crisis. In the political scenario of the Valley where separatist politics dominated for quite a long time, faith in Article 370 was seen as a major point of identification for mainstream parties. It marked the distinction between the mainstream parties on the one hand and separatist organisations, on the other.
With their emphasis on Article 370, the mainstream parties were seen as ‘pro-accession’ and ‘pro-constitution’ bodies distinct from the separatist organisations that contested both the accession of the state with India and its Constitution.
Loss of political narrative after reading down of Article 370
Article 370 therefore defined the direction and logic of mainstream politics in Kashmir. Within Valley, this Article was linked with Kashmiri identity. Even though over the period, this Article had lost its original logic and was hollowed out of its content, the Kashmir-based parties sought to hold on to it as a symbol of distinct Kashmiri identity.
With Article 370 being totally revamped in August 2019, these parties lost their major political narrative linked with the Kashmiri identity politics. This was more true for the National Conference which had initially negotiated the incorporation of Article 370 into the Constitution of India. ‘autonomy’ formed the core of National Conference’s ideology.
It was a fundamental starting principle of its politics and of its relation with its major constituency – the people in Kashmir valley. So organically linked was ‘autonomy’ to the politics of this party that its leadership often brought it to the central stage in crucial periods.
Thus when Sheikh Abdullah, after remaining in wilderness for around two decades sought to come back to power politics in 1975, he sought to bring ‘autonomy’ to the fore to justify shift in his politics from contesting the Indian state to occupying position of power in it.
During the 1983 Assembly election, Farooq Abdullah intensified his pitch around Article 370 and ‘autonomy’ in his bid to legitimise his leadership position after the death of Sheikh Abdullah as well as to face the onslaught of the Congress under the leadership of Indira Gandhi.
Faced with another crisis in 1990s, this time coming from the militancy and separatism which had overtaken the whole political space in Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah during the 1996 Assembly elections gave the slogan of ‘autonomy in its pristine form’ to counter the slogan of Azadi.
With reading down of Article 370 in August 2019, the National Conference lost its narrative and the raison d’être of its politics. With the idea of autonomy gone, the party was quite in disarray in ideological terms, it was not sure what to offer to people. Apart from the loss of its narrative, the NC along with other mainstream parties, were also faced with the question of their relevance in the changed political scenario.
Emergence of new parties posed threat to NC
In the imagined post-2019 ‘new Kashmir’, not only a discourse was built against the traditional parties’ but there was also an emergence of new parties like the Apni Party that sought to claim to have captured the political space left open after 2019 changes.
Apni Party emerged in 2020 with a bang comprised of many senior and influential Kashmiri leaders who had come from other parties, mainly the PDP but also from the Congress and the NC. This party claiming to be suited to the new realities sought to provide an alternative to the NC and the PDP.
The situation was not very smooth for the mainstream parties in the post-2019 period. In the wake of uncertainties related to the future of the traditional parties – there was a huge process of cross-party movement. The movement certainly was in one direction. The parties losing their leaders and cadre were the PDP, NC and Congress and the parties which were gaining in the process were Apni Party, People’s Conference and BJP.
That it was a real existential crisis for the traditional parties could be assessed from the situation of PDP. It is estimated that after August 5, 2019, at least 40 of the key members of the party left it. Many of these who left the party included those who had held ministerial positions when it was in power and many others who were its former MLAs.
As reported, 20 of its 28 legislators left the party. It is partially the impact of such onslaught on the party that one can see the impact in the 2024 Assembly election. From being the largest party of Kashmir in 2014, its strength has been reduced to 3 in the current election.
While PDP faced the major onslaught of cross-party movement, the NC too was not spared. Soon after the District Development Council (DDC) elections, many NC elected members shifted to other parties. The party faced its major debacle in Jammu region when Jammu’s provincial president and another senior leader who together formed the Jammu face of NC, left the party. In Kashmir also a few NC leaders deserted the party. However, the party, on the whole, withstood this crisis and was not as much affected by the desertions as the PDP was.
Certainly there is a structural difference between the NC and PDP. NC is an old cadre based party that is linked with Kashmiri society. It has seen many ups and downs in its long history and has shown its resilience over the period. While the party saw loss of its autonomy in post-1953 period and became subordinated to the Congress in the Centre, in 1965, it faced the bigger crisis when it was merged into the Congress.
After its dissolution, it was not in existence for next ten years. The party was resurrected in 1975 and remained in a position of dominance till 1996. It faced another crisis of existence when during the period of militancy, its cadre became the target of militant violence and the party lost its relevance in the face of overwhelmingly popular wave of separatist politics. The party was forced to hibernate and yet it resurfaced in 1996 and has continued to remain in politics since then.
It is in the background of this history of its challenges and its resilience, that one can say that the party facing the 2019 crisis, has once more given an example of its its survival despite the adverse situation. Its post-2019 story is also the story of its resilience via the pragmatic approach that the party adopted towards emerging situation.
Its pragmatic approach has been reflected in the way the party dealt with the question of democratic politics after 2019 and how after facing the first ever election held after 2019 changes under the banner of People’s Alliance for Gupkar Alliance (PAGD), it started delinking elections from PAGD.
One can see how the party, and especially Omar Abdullah even while critiquing the central government about the 2019 and later changes, has been taking care not to take an extreme non-negotiable position vis-a-vis the Centre. Thus while critiquing the delimitation process, the party agreed to join the consultation process of delimitation (and earlier the party also joined the all-party meet invited by the PM).
One can also see how Omar over the period took a very positive approach towards the whole electoral process and while acknowledging the earlier mistake of boycotting (the Panchayat) elections, took a clear position that the party would not boycott any election in future. And more recently, after declaring that he would not contest any election till J&K remains a UT, he changed his position and rather contested from two constituencies.
In sum, the party by adopting a pragmatic and not-so-hard or extreme approach, has been seeking to use whatever political space was available in Kashmir to keep itself relevant for the politics.
PAGD and NC
The existential crisis faced by the 2019 situation led the NC to join PAGD in the immediate period after the reading down of Article 370. The alliance was symbolic of Kashmiri resentment against the end of the special constitutional status of the state of J&K.
Pushing away all their rivalries and dissolving all their political differences, almost all the Kashmir-based mainstream parties had joined the alliance and even contested the DDC election held in late 2020, under its banner.
DDC election, however, proved to be a turning point for the National Conference. Its extraordinary performance in this election helped the party to gain the confidence about its continued relevance in Kashmir’s politics. Though it had to share the electoral space with other member of PAGD, it emerged as the largest party winning as many as 67 of the 84 DDC constituencies won by the PAGD in Kashmir division.
It was following the DDC election that NC leadership, particularly Omar Abdullah started strategising about the role of the party in Kashmir’s electoral politics. While PAGD was seen as the legitimate space for Kashmir-based parties to give a common fight to the Centre, Omar started distancing from it and drawing a distinction between the role of PAGD as an alliance symbolising protest against the end of special constitutional status and the electoral politics.
Quite early in this process, Omar made it clear that NC was not to contest Assembly election under the banner of PAGD. Even while there was pressure from the PDP to continue operating under PAGD, Omar had started talking about going alone in the coming Parliamentary and Assembly elections. Given the severe crisis that PDP was facing since 2019, NC found itself in a leading situation with no major competition on the ground.
Insistence to go solo in Lok Sabha elections
That this pragmatic approach towards election paid the NC, was made quite clear during the Lok Sabha election. Going against the general refrain that to face the challenge of BJP, all the Kashmir-based mainstream parties should be contesting elections jointly, Omar has been continuously insisting on contesting election on the basis of party’s own strength.
So while being part of the INDIA alliance of which PDP was also member, Omar very firmly claimed the right of NC to contest three Parliamentary constituencies of the valley and leaving the space open to other members of INDIA bloc in the two Parliamentary constituencies of Jammu (and one of Ladakh).
In the process while PDP was compelled to fight against the NC, Omar Abdullah did not find that as a development detrimental to NC’s interest.
The Parliamentary election clearly reflected that the approach of NC succeeded in putting this party in a leading position both in Kashmir region as well as in the state. Certainly Engineer Rashid’s entry in that election was a jolt for the NC in general and Omar Abdullah in particular, yet a clear victory of the party in two valley seats established the dominance of the party in Kashmir.
What was quite clearly indicated in that election – Kashmiris had rejected parties like the Apni party (and even the People’s Conference) that were projecting themselves as the new and popular alternative to the traditional parties like NC. PDP in any case was too weakened to provide any competition to the NC.
Tackling challenge from Engineer Rashid’s party and independents
The Assembly election brought about a renewed challenge of multiple parties and candidates from the separatist sphere. The success of Engineer Rashid in Parliamentary election had emboldened the radical forces and an attempt was made to make use of the ‘Engineer Rashid’ model of mobilising the separatist and radical forces in Kashmir against the National Conference.
It was according to this thinking that not only a large number of candidates were fielded by Engineer Rashid’s party, the Awami Itehad Party, but Jamaat-i-Islami, the traditional rival of the NC also decided to join the electoral fray. Meanwhile a number of ex-militants and separatists also contested the election.
This was certainly a big challenge for the NC. With a history of separatist dominance in Kashmir’s politics in 1990s and later period, there was an apprehension that the radical forces may once again consolidate themselves upsetting the mainstream forces like the NC.
However, the results of Assembly elections made this very clear that these radical forces had no space in Kashmir’s electoral politics. By giving a clear mandate for the NC, the Kashmiris have given a strong message about their preference not only about the party they want to represent them but also about the politics they want to have.
Dominance Regained
The NC through its performance in 2024 Assembly election has proved that it is a party that is here to stay. As the election results have shown, all those actors that proclaimed the decimation of NC have themselves been decimated. Apni party, for instance, has not been able to win even one seat. Other parties have similarly failed to make a mark.
The People’s Conference could barely win one seat. Engineer Rashid’s AIP that entered the contest with a great enthusiasm ended up with only one seat and Jamaat e Islami has not opened its account.
What however is significant is that the NC has emerged as the dominant party of Kashmir, the way it has been historically. To understand this point it may be pertinent to refer to the space that NC had captured in the electoral politics of Kashmir from 1947 to 1996.
With the exception of ten year (1965-1975) when the party was dissolved, NC almost had a hegemonic control over the electoral space – capturing as many as 100% Legislative Assembly seats of Valley in 1951 and 1957; 93% seats in 1962; 93% in 1977; 90% in 1983; 76% for NC and 88% for NC-Congress alliance in 1987; and 87% in 1996.
Such a hegemonic control of the NC over Kashmir region was lost in 2002 as PDP emerged as another regional party of Kashmir. Thereafter, rather than being the hegemonic or dominant party of Kashmir, NC started facing the competitive challenge from the PDP.
Though it emerged as the largest party of the Valley in 2002, it could win only 18 of the total of 46 Valley in this election. In 2008, it again emerged as the largest party of the Valley, but with only 20 seats. 2014 saw its worst performance when it trailed behind the PDP and while PDP got 25 seats in the Valley, NC got only 12 seats. Its share of votes was also significantly reduced.
It is in this perspective that one can see how NC has regained its hegemonic position in Kashmir’s politics after the 2024 assembly elections. Of the 47 seats of the valley, the party has won around 75% of total seats (and along with its allies it has got around 87% seats). PDP, its adversary since 2002 has got only 3 seats.
The only other parties that have any presence in electoral space include Congress with five seats (most of the analysts attributing these seats to the alliance factor and Congress getting the benefit of NC’s popularity); CPM, an ally of NC with one seat; People’s Conference with one seat, and Engineer Rashid’s AIP with one seat.
Rekha Chowdhary was formerly a professor of Political Science at the University of Jammu.