Kashmir’s largest political party, the National Conference (NC), has won the most seats in the recent election for a largely powerless local government in Indian-controlled Kashmir. According to official data, the NC won 41 seats and was leading in one constituency, mainly from the Kashmir Valley, the heartland of the anti-India rebellion. The election was seen as a referendum against the 2019 move by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government that stripped the disputed region of its special status.
The NC leader, Omar Abdullah, hailed the victory as a mandate to prove that his party is worth the votes it received. His father, party president Farooq Abdullah, emphasized that the mandate is to run the region without “police raj” and try freeing people from jails, adding that the media will be free.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Modi, secured 29 seats, all from the Hindu-dominated areas of Jammu. India’s main opposition Congress party, which fought the election in alliance with the NC, succeeded in six constituencies.
The election was the first since Modi’s Hindu nationalist government scrapped the Muslim-majority region’s long-held semi-autonomy in 2019. The move was largely opposed in Kashmir as an assault on its identity and autonomy amid fears that it would pave the way for demographic changes in the region.
Authorities tallied votes as thousands of additional police and paramilitary soldiers patrolled the streets and guarded 28 counting centers. Nearly 8.9 million people were eligible to vote in the election, which began on September 18 and concluded on October 1, with an overall turnout of 64%.
Omar Abdullah (Image via Getty)
The election will bring democracy to the region after decades of strife, but many locals viewed the vote as an opportunity not only to elect their own representatives but also to register their protest against the 2019 changes. Except for the BJP, most parties which contested the election campaigned on promises to reverse the 2019 changes and address key issues like rising unemployment and inflation.
The NC, in alliance with the Congress, has 48 seats combined, which is enough to form a government. However, the election will also allow Kashmir to have its own truncated government and a regional legislature, called an assembly, rather than being directly under New Delhi’s rule. But there will be a limited transition of power from New Delhi to the assembly as Kashmir will remain a “union territory” – directly controlled by the federal government – with India’s Parliament as its main legislator.
The region’s statehood must be restored for the new government to have powers similar to other states of India. The region’s last assembly election was held in 2014, after which the BJP for the first time ruled in a coalition with the local People’s Democratic Party. But the government collapsed in 2018, after the BJP withdrew from the coalition.
The elections in Kashmir have often been marked with violence, boycotts, and vote-rigging, even though India called them a victory over separatism. Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country. India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle.
Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels, and government forces have been killed in the conflict. The election victory for the NC is a significant milestone in the region’s turbulent politics, and it remains to be seen how the new government will address the long-standing issues in the region.
