Mehbooba Mufti loosing political turf in Kashmir Valley
| 26-Dec-2018 |
The veteran politicians have been leaving the PDP to join either other political parties or have declared to contest election independently. In the past six months, many senior leaders—Imran Raza Ansari, Basharat Bukhari, Abid Ansari, Haseeb Drabu, Muhammad Abbas Wani and Peer Muhammad Hussain—have quit the party. The recent spate of veteran party leaders leaving PDP has sent jitters among the party leaders, especially the president of the PDP.
Embattled Mehbooba Mufti
The embattled Mehbooba Mufti former CM and Peoples Democratic Party president tried to assuage the dissent and unease in the party Tuesday in a meeting, in which she told the party workers to “not take the deserters seriously”. She even asserted that she would “compensate the exit of leaders from the party with new entrants.” She even shared her apprehensions that more leader would leave the party in coming days but “an equal number of prominent leaders will join it.” This statement she might have made to allay the fear among the party workers, who are the backbone of any political party. Mehbooba met the PDP workers from Kishtwar, Inderwal, Bhaderwah, Doda, Banihal and Ramban areas to seek their “feedback” about the “situation on ground” vis-à-vis assembly elections scheduled next year.
Mehbooba’s double-speak
Surprisingly, she told the party workers in this meeting that she was not in favour of continuing the alliance with BJP after the death of her father in Mufti Muhammad Sayeed in 2016, but some party leaders were in favour of this alliance, hence she continued the alliance. She remained the CM of the state from 4th April 2016 to 19th June 2018 in the PDP-BJP alliance in the state and she never expressed her desire to either leave the chief ministerial ship or breaking the alliance. It was BJP who deserted the PDP after have the ideological issues in governance. Though she seemed confident to win the Kashmir region but the recent political turmoil after the alliance has been broken has created difficult situation for her party. Also, her focus on Jammu region is clearly giving the impression that the party feels that she might have been losing her turf in this region. Therefore, the major emphasis is laid on winning the confidence of voters in Jammu region.
PDP’s identity as Kashmir Valley based political party
It is difficult for PDP to get much inroads in Jammu because it is identified as the Kashmir valley based political party. During the J&K assembly elections BJP got a total 23.0% votes in the state whereas PDP 22.7% vote shares. While the BJP has clearly established its solid political base in Jammu it seems difficult for PDP to make any dent in this. PDP gained in assembly election mainly from Kashmir region. Even during the 9 phase of panchayat election 74% voter out was observed, in which 83.5 percent in Jammu division and 44.4 percent in Kashmir division. Kashmir region Kupwara witnessed 53.6 percent polling, Bandipora 46 percent, Baramulla 38.9 percent and Budgam 38.8 percent observed a good number of voters’ turn-out despite the boycott call given by separatists and the major political parties PDP and NC from the Valley. This clearly gives an indication that the popularity of Kashmir valley based political parties is plummeting and in this scenario, it seems unlikely for PDP make much success even in Kashmir itself.