Modi's BJP loses election in India-administered Kashmir

Kashmir’s biggest regional political party on Tuesday won most seats in the recent election in Indian-administered Kashmir, official data showed, in a vote 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.

Elections in the restive India-administered Kashmir that ended on Saturday for the 90-seat assembly were held in three phases. Experts say the result won't change much for Kashmiris as the local government will be largely powerless.

The regional Kashmiri alliance National Conference, or NC, won 42 seats, mainly from the Kashmir Valley, the data showed.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured 29 constituencies, 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.

Losing power in India-administered Kashmir is not expected to impact the Modi government's ability to make federal policies. Still, it will be seen as a dampener for the BJP ahead of elections in the more politically crucial states of Maharashtra and Jharkhand.

Exit polls had predicted a win for the main opposition Congress party and its regional ally National Conference (NC) in India-administered Kashmir.

Another regional party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which had partnered with BJP in the last assembly election in 2014, has been decimated and won just three seats but is expected to join the NC-INC coalition against BJP.

In the Legislative Assembly, a party or an alliance will need at least 45 seats to form a government.

There is, however, a twist here as five seats have been allocated to Kashmiri Hindus, Women and refugees, and a "pro-Modi governor" is at the helm of affairs to nominate these seats.

Victory for the NC-Congress alliance in India-administered Kashmir will come as a major boost for its leader, Rahul Gandhi, the scion of a dynasty that gave India three prime ministers but who was blamed for the party's slump since Modi swept to power in 2014.

BJP had also encouraged dozens of independent candidates and small parties to cut the vote in the Muslim-majority Kashmir region, which, as results show, seems to have not yielded much.

'Not quite an election'

The election was done after a delimitation exercise and creation of new electoral constituencies, which Kashmir-based political parties were not satisfied with, as the Hindu majority Jammu region had been allotted more seats than what they ought to have received according to size of its population.

Thousands of Kashmiris continue to be in jail, and rights groups have accused the Modi-led government of repression of civic spaces and violations of human rights.

Even regional political parties have raised concern about the powers of assembly in India-administered Kashmir, many describing it as a toothless tiger, and the Chief Minister (CM) as a rubber stamp or a decorated mayor.

The Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, who has been the de facto head of the government, is seen as an extension of India's federal government and has been granted extraordinary powers.

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X that BJP was using malicious ways to gain power.

“To undo this democratic process, they have resorted to the old ways of their self-proclaimed bogus ‘Chanakya-niti '. We have clear information and basis to say that malicious steps are being taken through a colourable and malafide exercise of power to negate the people’s verdict in favour of the INC–NC alliance in J&K. We will do everything in our power to thwart such nefarious designs,” Ramesh said.