| Apprehending defeat, Kashmir BJP hesitant to contest upcoming ULB, Panchayat elections | | | Javaid Naikoo
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Mar 8: As the process of conducting panchayat and urban local bodies (ULB) elections has already began in political corridors of state, BJP unit of Kashmir is uncertain to participate in the election process.
BJP which failed to achieve Mission 44+ during assembly elections of 2014 due to poor show by its Kashmir unit could not add much to its previous dismal performance as its leaders are yet to pull crowd to organize a rally like other regional political parties of state. Despite tall claims of listing 11 lakh people during its membership drive last year, BJP leaders of Kashmir according to sources are still hesitant to call for a public gathering in any part of Kashmir and invite any top Brass BJP leader from core group to address the gathering.
They said that party leadership fearing defeat once again in upcoming ULB and Panchayat elections is also uncertain to contest elections. Go through the record of dismal past, the total number of votes polled for all the BJP candidates in Kashmir division during last year assembly elections were 39,959 and despite immense media hype and a lot of expenditure through different means, 33 out of 34 BJP candidates lost their security deposits due to poor performance.
Except for Javaidd Qadri, who polled 3384 votes, the highest by any BJP candidate in Kashmir, all other candidates from South and North Kashmir could not even secure their security deposits. In Srinagar's Habba Kadal, BJP's Moti Kaul got 2596 votes, Ashok Bhat got 550 votes from Khanyar, Darakshan Andrabi, who remained in news headlines all the time for praising BJP policies, secured only 1100 votes from Sonwar constituency while contesting against Omar Abdullah of National Conference and Mohammad Ashraf Mir of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The noted woman face of BJP in Srinagar, Hina Bhat secured only 1359 votes from Amira Kadal against Mohammad Altaf Bukhari of PDP and Nasir Aslam Wani of NC and wept bitterly in open after results were announced and another female candidate, Neelam Gaash, who fought on the party mandate from Srinagar's Zadibal polled the lowest of 360 votes.
As per figures, during 2008 assembly elections Amira Kadal constituency of city which saw a voter turnout of 14.98% BJP only secured 149 votes, in Habbakadal, which saw a voter turnout of 11.62 %, BJP secured only 671 votes, in Tral where 48 % voter turnout was recorded BJP secured 338 votes. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue of abrogation of article 370 during his campaigning of Lok Sabha elections, BJP candidates, who contested from Central,North and South Kashmir, got only 15,845 votes.
In public rally of last year jointly addressed by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and then Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir late Mufti Muhammad Syed here at Srinagar reports later said that more than BJP leadership crowd for the rally was pulled by PDP legislators. After announcement of BJP Member of legislative council (MLC) names last year, BJP sources said that dropping some expected faces of Kashmir from list also gave birth to internal bickering within state BJP unit. |
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