NC Versus BJP In Rajya Sabha Polls In Jammu And Kashmir

With the ruling party, the National Conference (NC), fielding candidates for all four Rajya Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir after Congress decided not to contest the elections, and the BJP putting up candidates for three seats, the contest has been reduced to a fight between the NC and the BJP.

On the last date for nominations today, NC leaders Choudhary Ramzan, Sajjad Kichloo, Shammi Oberoi, and the party spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar filed their nominations for the four seats. From the BJP, three candidates — Sat Sharma, the party’s J&K president, vice president Rakesh Mahajan, and Ali Mohammad Mir — filed their nomination papers.

In the elections, MLAs will cast their votes, and the NC has the numbers to win three seats but remains hopeful of securing the fourth with the support of other secular parties. Elections will be held in three separate rounds, with two rounds for two seats and one round for the remaining two. In the two seats where a single election will be held, the BJP currently has the numbers to emerge victorious in one.

In the 2024 Assembly elections, the NC won forty-two seats, the BJP twenty-nine, Congress six, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) three, the Peoples Conference (PC) one, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] one, and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) one, while independents secured seven seats. The BJP’s strength was later reduced to twenty-eight after the demise of the Nagrota MLA, Devender Singh Rana, while the NC currently has forty-one members following Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s decision to vacate the Budgam seat to retain Ganderbal. The NC also claims the support of five independent members from Jammu, taking its alliance tally to forty-six.

According to the poll schedule, while the last date for filing nominations was 13 October, scrutiny will take place the next day, and the last date for withdrawing nominations is 16 October. Voting will be held on 24 October, and counting will also take place on the same day.

NC’s Provincial President (Jammu), Rattan Lal Gupta, says that besides its own MLAs, the party has the support of five independent members from Jammu following last year’s elections in Jammu and Kashmir. “We are hopeful of emerging victorious in the seats that we are contesting,” he says.

BJP spokesperson Manzoor Bhat says that the party has filed nominations for three Rajya Sabha seats and not four, as reported by a section of the media. The nomination papers were filed in the presence of Union MoS Jitendra Singh and Rajya Sabha MP Er Ghulam Ali Khatana at the Assembly complex in Srinagar.

On Sunday, the Congress decided not to put up a candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections after a party meeting that lasted several hours, which was also convened to hold discussions on the Budgam and Nagrota Assembly seats.

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Monga says the party decided not to contest as the NC did not respond in time to its request for one seat. “If the NC had responded well in time, we might have contested the polls, even for the seat where we had competition with the BJP. There should have been discussions a month before the polls, but the NC didn’t show any interest in talking over the matter,” he says.

Prior to Congress’s decision to stay out of the polls, members from both upper and lower castes within the party had staked a claim for one seat. Several Brahmin leaders and younger faces were lobbying hard for the ticket, while those representing the old guard and the lower caste community had also made their claims.

Former minister and senior Congress leader Mula Ram says that people from the Scheduled Caste community have long been ignored and have not found representation in Parliament. “The population of SCs is nearly 25 per cent in Jammu and Kashmir, but the community has not been given representation in Parliament,” he says.

A senior Congress leader, however, says there was a need to provide representation to the Brahmins in Jammu by fielding their candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls, adding that from Kashmir, the party already has political representation through MLAs in the Assembly.

In the polls, besides the independents, the support of other parties, including the PDP and CPI(M), will be crucial. Former minister and senior PDP leader Nayeem Akhtar says the party does not have sufficient numbers to field a candidate. He adds, however, that a decision will be taken by the party leadership on whom to support in the 24 October elections.