Srinagar: Despite stiff opposition from some political parties in Jammu and Kashmir, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has deferred the polling for the Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha constituency from May 7 to May 25.
The announcement has come at a time when the tribal Gujjars and Bakkerwals, who make a significant percentage of voters in the constituency, are set to begin their annual migration to the higher reaches of Pir Panjal mountains, raising question marks on their ability to vote.
Former J&K chief minister and National Conference (NC) vice-president Omar Abdullah termed the ECI’s decision “unfortunate”, alleging that it was a “conspiracy to disenfranchise the nomadic Gujjar-Bakkerwal population” who form a significant vote bank of his party candidate and senior tribal leader Mian Altaf Larvi.
“The Bhartiya Janta Party is well aware that these tribal people are in the higher pastures along with their livestock (by May 25). They also know who these tribal people vote for. The Election Commission should not have allowed this to happen,” Abdullah told The Wire.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
According to a 2014 report in International Organisation of Scientific Research’s Journal of Humanities and Social Science, Gujjars and Bakkerwals are the third largest community constituting 8.1% of the total population of Jammu and Kashmir.
The two tribal groups are mainly concentrated in Poonch (40.12%) and Rajouri (33.19%) districts of Jammu and Anantnag and Kulgam districts (8.3%) of Kashmir Valley, which together are part of the newly formed Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha constituency.
In an extraordinary gazette notification on Tuesday, April 30, the ECI said that instead of May 7 in the third phase, the Anantnag-Rajouri constituency, which was carved out after the J&K delimitation exercise in 2022, will go to polls on May 25 in the sixth phase of the ongoing election.
The notification came after the ruling BJP,, four other political parties which are widely seen as the allies of the saffron party and two independent candidates approached the commission for deferring the polls, citing the issues of accessibility among other reasons in their written representations.
The call by the BJP and other parties had prompted the commission last week to seek a report on “road conditions, weather and accessibility-related constraints” in the constituency from J&K’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) P.K. Pole and chief secretary Atal Dullo.
While announcing the change of polling date, the ECI said that some political parties had called for rescheduling the polls due to “various logistic, communication and natural barriers of connectivity turning out as hindrance in campaigning which … (is) tantamount to lack of fair opportunities for the contesting candidates”.
In its new notification, the ECI said that after “analysing the ground situation” and in pursuance of the report of the Jammu and Kashmir administration, whose contents have not been revealed, the polling date has been revised under Section 56 of the Representation of People Act, 1951.
Both the NC as well as the Peoples Democratic Party have rejected the argument of “connectivity” for deferring the polls by pointing to the alternate road from the Srinagar-Jammu national highway which connects the two distinct regions of the constituency.
According to political observers, the BJP’s calculation is that while the depleted Gujjar and Bakkerwal votes might get further divided between the NC and the PDP, the recent grant of tribal status to the Pahari-speaking people, who account for more than 56% population of Poonch and Rajouri districts, according to the J&K Advisory Board for Development of Pahari Speaking People, could flip the equation in favour of its ally and Apni Party candidate Zaffar Iqbal Manhas.
Apni Party and Sajad Lone’s Peoples Conference (PC) were among the five political parties that knocked on the Election Commission’s doors for deferring the polling date. However, the BJP and PC have not fielded any candidates from the constituency.
There were reports that the saffron party might field its own candidate from the constituency if the ECI deferred the polls and announced a fresh schedule for the constituency, but the new ECI notification seems to have ruled out that possibility.
The notification said that the “rest of the content of Notification No. 464/EPS/2024(3), dated 12th April, 2024”, under which April 19 was the last date for filing of nomination papers for Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha constituency “shall remain unchanged”.
Earlier, the commission had said that the constituency, which was redrawn by merging parts of Jammu division with Kashmir Valley in defiance of the region’s geography, will go to polls in the third phase of Lok Sabha election on May 7.
The election is expected to be a triangular contest between the NC’s Altaf, a five-time lawmaker from Kangan assembly constituency, former J&K chief minister and Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti and Manhas, a Pahari politician.
Ghulam Nabi Azad’s newly-floated outfit Democratic Progressive Azad Party had announced that the former Congress leader was going to contest from the constituency. However, in a surprising move, Azad later said that he was not entering the Lok Sabha battle, citing commitments to build his nascent party which has fielded Saleem Parry, an advocate, from the seat.
While the NC believes that the change in the election date may cast a shadow on the prospects of Altaf, Mehbooba had warned that any attempt to defer the polling will “dent the credibility of the election” while comparing such a move to the rigging of 1987 assembly election in J&K which is widely believed to have triggered the armed insurgency in early 1990s.
