SRINAGAR: Evening campaigns and door-to-door canvassing have returned to Kashmir Valley for the first time since 1987 J&K assembly polls, a cataclysmic rigging-riddled exercise on Farooq Abdullah-led NC govt’s watch blamed for alienating people and igniting terrorism in the next few years.
This time, the vignettes of peace and receding terror are hard to miss ahead of the Sept 18-Oct 1 polls.Once having to address voters from a distance, heavily shielded by troops, candidates now shake hands, hug supporters and share tea during door-to-door campaigns, even in downtown Valley constituencies once the gun’s shadow.
Khurshid Alam, former MLC and PDP candidate from Srinagar’s Eidgah seat, attested to the shift. “Earlier, we returned home before sunset. There was danger then. These days, campaigning goes on till 12am,” Alam said.
Voters echoed the mood. “People, once hesitant and fearful, now openly welcome politicians into their homes, offering tea and blessings. This level of engagement is unprecedented in the past 40 years,” said Gulzar Ahmad of Pulwama’s Rajpora.
Ahmad amplified the picture of contrast. “Candidates were afraid of door-to-door campaigning earlier as they feared stone-pelting and election boycotts orchestrated by terrorist organisations as well as Hurriyat leaders. Now, people are coming out of their homes, sharing their issues directly with candidates,” Ahmad said.
Analysts believe the trouble-free campaigning presages a surge in turnout, which stayed in single digits for much of the past 40 years in the Valley. The tide appeared to turn in this summer’s LS polls when voting in Srinagar seat hit a four-decade high of 38.5%.
Another standout element of this election is the presence of new faces. For the first time since the Aug 2019 removal of J&K’s special status, Independents backed by the banned Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) are in the fray in seven of the 90 assembly seats. JeI has said it stayed off earlier polls because of “electoral fraud”.
Among the other new entrants are Aijaz Ahmed Guru, brother of Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru who was hanged in 2013. Aijaz is the fray as an Independent from Sopore, highlighting local issues like employment and youth rehabilitation. “I will prioritise Sopore, which has been neglected for long,” Aijaz says at his campaigns. But Afzal’s widow Tabasum has distanced herself from her brother-in-law’s decision.
Joining the line-up of new faces are candidates of Baramulla MP Abdul Rashid Sheikh alias Engineer Rashid, who defeated NC vice-president and ex-CM Omar Abdullah in this year’s LS polls despite being lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail in a terror-funding case.
Rashid recently got interim bail to campaign for 19 candidates of his Awami Ittehad Party (AIP). Omar questioned the bail and insinuated that Rashid’s temporary release might be a “BJP ploy” to weaken the Valley’s mainstream parties. Rasheed, Omar noted, would after all have to “return to Tihar”
Rashid riposted saying Omar could “see him off till Tihar” if he wished and pointing out that the NC heavyweight had never spoken up as a fellow Kashmiri for his release even as he kept demanding bail for INDIA bloc ally and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal.
Omar fired another salvo Friday, saying he was ready to accompany Rashid to Tihar if he “leaves the field for NC”. Omar also drew attention to Rashid’s “silence” on a question about a possible post-poll alliance with BJP. “The people of Baramulla were befooled that their votes will help Rashid’s release, but the fact is courts are the only way one can come out of jail,” Omar said, referring to the LS contest this summer.