WHEN Bharat Vyas, the young collector of Srinagar district and the returning officer of the capital constituency, told reporters that out of the 685 polling booths in the constituency 655 were hypersensitive, the impression was that at least the remaining 30 would be safe—a great achievement and a far cry from the days of the 'azadi wave' in 1990. But it was not to be. The remaining 30 are 'sensitive', Vyas added with typical bureaucratic hair-splitting.
The categorisation of hypersensitive and sensitive hold good for most parts of the Valley's three constituencies and many areas of the sprawling Udhampur constituency in Jammu region. The highly volatile and militancy-infested Doda district is a part of Udhampur which boasts 43 contestants, the largest number in the state.
Those who were in favour of holding the Lok Sabha elections are obviously banking on the 'Punjab experiment' where the polls proved a harbinger of peace. But pessimists reaffirm that 'inadequate' electoral exercises are the reason for Kashmir's woes.
However, the Government seems to have turned the corner on the logistical front. The fact that booths will be established with staff from outside the state is no mean achievement. But the complexion of the contest would suggest that in spite of a 'record' presence of 110 candidates, political participation has clearly receded even from the unenviable level of 1989. Farooq Abdullah's staying away was a definite setback to the efforts to infuse an element of credibility to the contest. Another blow came when the Congress was forced to field a little-known party functionary, Ghulam Mohammad Magami, since the Gujjar religious and political leader Mian Bashir refused the Congress party's mandate from Srinagar. Mian, who only two years back had represented the Indian case on Kashmir at the UN, is the senior vice president of the PCC and the chairman of its campaign committee. He has reportedly refused to campaign for the party, as he is cut up about party chief Ghulam Rasool Kar's efforts to sideline him and prop up Taj Mohiuddin, the Anantnag constituency candidate.
Mian is one of the only two Muslim leaders in mainstream politics, besides Farooq Abdullah, who can claim influence over a section of the community. The other is the Shia scholar-politician-businessman Moulvi Iftikhar who wields considerable clout over the minority Shia community. He too has 'boycotted' the elections. Iftikhar had created electoral history of sorts by contesting against Begum Akbar Jahan, the wife of Sheikh Abdullah in 1977—a virtual 'sacrilege' at that time. He lost, but established himself in Kashmir politics as a Shia representative. Strangely, he now finds himself closer to Sheikh Abdullah's son, Farooq, than to his party chief Kar, with whom he has often been involved in physical bouts.
Many contestants have graduated to the political arena through the tortuous route of Pakistan-sponsored secessionist militancy and a stint in the anti-insurgency force of the government. There are three distinct anti-insurgency groups who have joined the fray. The leading one is the Awami League of Kukka Parray who launched the 'political outfit' after wiping out pro-Pakistan militants from many areas in the past year under the banner of Ikhwanul Muslimoon. It has put up candidates for all the three constituencies from the Valley. While Mir Niyazi and Javed Ahmed Shah, the candidates from Baramulla and Srinagar constituencies are both cops-turned-militants-turned-anti-insurgents, the candidate from Anantnag is Capt S. K. Tickoo who returns to the Valley after six years of exile. The Awami League is believed to be counting on the votes of migrant Hindus. Par-ray, who visited migrant camps in Jammu recently, was well received and has promised to take them back to the Valley. The Pandit migrants, though having only 96,000 votes in the three constituencies, could play a crucial role in the case of a boycott by a majority of the people in the Valley. Though some Pandit organisations had called for a boycott, there are indications of their being able to use an arrangement by which they can vote from their present places of residence for candidates back home. The danger, however, is that their vote could get divided between the Awami League, the BJP and the Congress.
The BJP has, for the first time, fielded candidates for all six constituencies, though it still feels that the conditions in the state are not conducive to polls. Analysts feel that the decision to hold the elections, at least in the second and third phase, might not be final. By the time elections are due for the three Valley seats and Udhampur and Doda, on May 23 and 30, a new government is likely to be in place in Delhi which may take a decision according to its own priorities. As an analyst observes, even Narasimha Rao, if he becomes prime minister again, may not have much use for a Kashmir poll, once he is firm in the saddle.
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