Srinagar: In the first election in Kargil after the dilution of Article 370, INDIA alliance constituents – the National Conference and Congress – registered a landslide victory by winning 22 out of 26 seats in the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, Kargil election. The emergence of J&K’s grand old party, National Conference, as the single largest party in the region, which has been directly ruled by New Delhi through its Lieutenant Governor and bureaucrats since 2019, shows that the Muslim-majority district of Kargil is politically inseparable from Kashmir despite their geographical separation. The outcome of the polls in also seen as a rebuff to the BJP-led Union Government’s August 5, 2019 decisions on Jammu and Kashmir and its subsequent policies in the region.
Stellar performance by NC-Congress
In a keenly watched electoral battle amid Ladakh’s fight for statehood and constitutional safeguards, National Conference won 12 while its ally Congress emerged victorious on 10 seats. The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and independents managed to win two seats each.
Both NC and Congress, who are part of the INDIA alliance, had entered into a pre-poll pact to keep the BJP at bay. As per their power-sharing deal, both the parties would have equal share in the executive council of the Hill Council.
Both the parties termed the verdict as a rejection of the BJP and its August 5, 2019 decisions.
In a post on X, NC vice-president and former chief minister Omar Abdullah said the outcome is a resounding verdict against the BJP and its policies and and empathic rejection of what Union government did to J&K on August 5, 2019.
Haji Asgar Ali Karbali, working president of Congress for Ladakh UT, said that BJP has been rejected by the people of Kargil. “The message is clear that BJP and its policies are unacceptable to people here,” he told The Wire.
While the NC had projected the election as a referendum on the August 5, 2019 decisions, the BJP, in a rare departure from its trademark politics of Hindu versus Muslim, tried to play the Muslim card, given the district’s demographic composition. Kargil is a Muslim-majority district and its inhabitants are mostly followers of the Shia sect.
This was the first electoral battle in Kargil after the BJP-led Union government read down Article 370 and reorganised the erstwhile state of J&K into two union territories.
The emergence of NC as the single-largest political party in the polls has once again indicated that Kargil is politically and psychologically closer to Kashmir than Jammu or New Delhi.
Unlike Leh district, which had erupted with celebrations on the grant of UT status to Ladakh in 2019, the people in Muslim-majority Kargil had opposed the bifurcation move and observed a shutdown for several weeks.
In 2021, people of both Leh and Kargil joined hands to seek full-fledged statehood for Ladakh and constitutional safeguards for natives.
Setback for BJP?
Despite BJP improving its tally from one seat in 2018 to two seats this time, the outcome is seen as major setback to the BJP before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls due to the shrinking of its electoral popularity in Buddhist-majority Leh district.
In the 2020 Hill Council election in neighbouring Leh district, BJP won three seats short of its tally in the election held in 2015.
A cursory look at today’s results shows that out of three Buddhist-majority seats in Kargil district, the BJP managed to win only one seat while the remaining two went to NC-Congress.
It lost the Buddhist-majority seat of Padum to National Conference by 54 votes and Karsha to Congress by 79 votes, while it won the Cha seat by 234 votes.
BJP managed to win the Muslim-majority Stakchay Khangral seat by the division of Muslim votes between NC, Congress and two other independent candidates.
Its candidate Padma Dorjey defeated Syed Hassan of Congress by 177 votes.
The saffron party’s prominent face and former chairman of J&K legislative council, Haji Inayat Ali, lost the election from Poyen segment by 366 votes to NC.
“We have improved our seat tally and vote share,” BJP MP Jamyang Namgayal told The Wire.
The results of the Hill Council polls are likely to boost a subdued Congress in J&K and Ladakh, where the BJP is their main competitor.
Leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party in Jammu and Kashmir, and the national leadership of the Congress and CPI(M) celebrated the INDIA alliance’s win.