As was the case in the parliamentary elections the north Kashmir has topped the three divisions of Kashmir when it came to polling percentage in the assembly elections of 2024. With near about 70 percent polling in some assembly constituencies and more than 60 percent in others North Kashmir is slowly yet steadily emerging as the new political centre of Kashmir’s politics. All eyes on the north, said one political observer, gleefully pointing out that voting in the north is always a spectacle of sorts. The politics in north Kashmir is usually all about the hard-fought, hotly-contested elections. Full of new alliances, schemes, betrayals and suspenses politics in north Kashmir has graduated into a great specimen of multi-party democracy.
This time round the contest got even more spicier with the bail of Awami Itihad Party’s Engineer Rasheed. He did not lose even an hour and went on back to back campaigns. While it remains to be seen how intensely his magic will work this time round in the assembly elections but observers feel that Engineer Rasheed may not be an out and out rahe in assembly elections as he was in the parliamentary elections. Sajad Lone of People’s Conference still struggling with the bitter loss in the parliamentary elections when he got lakhs of votes less than both Omar Abdullah and Engineer Rasheed. It is being learnt that this time round Sajad Lone has changed his strategy and is quietly trying to beat Engineer Rasheed at his own game. Contesting from two significant assembly constituencies of North Kashmir Sajad has gone for village-to-village campaigning with as little crowds listening to him. Sajad has cleverly avoided big rallies and pomp-n-show this time round.
The National Conference would like to build on the fact that Engineer may have lost some momentum due to the bad press latter got due to random selection of candidates – to the extent that a dejected candidates went to media saying that the candidate who was selected instead of him is an avowed womaniser. National Conference is sitting well-positioned and would like to see the wind in their sails to take them towards the higher end of the expected 25-35 seats they are expected to get. Their estimation is based on the fact that most of political observers say PDP will be relegated to a single-digit number in the middle range – any number from four to eight seats.
National Conference has to tread very carefully as Agha Ruhullah has forewarned explicitly that any deviation from the core principles of the party would entail that he would leave the party without a second guess. Agha Ruhullah is now a powerful leader within the National Conference (NC)outside the Abdullah family and ignoring his ideas have the potential to break the Kashmir’s oldest and longest-serving political party.
Congratulations to the people of Jammu and Kashmir in general and to the people of North Kashmir in particular for the massive participation in the elections. Whoever wins and whoever forms the alliance democracy is a clear winner in this election.
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