Year 2024 saw PDP fortunes plummet to freezing point, NC reclaiming dominance

Srinagar, Dec 31: The PDP, once a formidable challenger to Jammu and Kashmir’s grand old party, the National Conference (NC), faced a significant debacle in the 2024 assembly elections, held after a hiatus of 10 years.

The PDP’s influence, particularly in south Kashmir, spread over four districts of Anantnag, Kulgam, Pulwama and Shopian and which had been its stronghold since its formation in 1999 by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, waned drastically.

In these elections, the party managed to secure only three seats, with a mere two coming from its erstwhile bastion.

The party even lost Bijbehara- the home constituency of Muftis to National Conferences, Bashir Ahmad Shah Veeri.

Veeri won his maiden election by defeating the daughter of PDP President, Mehbooba Mufti Iltija Mufti. On the other hand, the NC, despite entering a pre-poll alliance with the Congress-led INDIA bloc, dominated the elections independently, winning 42 out of the 90 assembly seats.

The party’s president, Omar Abdullah won both the seats – Ganderbal and Budgam , he contested and went on to become Chief Minister for the second time.

Congress secured six seats, while the CPI(M) and the Aam Aadmi Party each won one seat. Six independents extended their support to NC, as it returned to power with a divisive mandate.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the second-largest party, increasing its tally to 29 seats, all from the Jammu region. Even as the NC swept north and central Kashmir, its resurgence in south Kashmir winning 10 constituencies out of the 12 it contested signaled a dramatic shift in the region's political dynamics.

One of the two seats NC lost in south Kashmir was Shopian, where NC rebel Shabir Ahmad Kullay, running as an independent after being denied a party ticket, defeated the official candidate, Sheikh Mohammad Rafi, by over 1,000 votes.

Similarly, in Tral, another NC rebel, Ghulam Nabi Bhat, a former NC legislator, ran as an independent and secured 9,654 votes, finishing third. PDP’s Rafiq Ahmad Malik narrowly won that seat, defeating NC’s Surinder Singh Channi.

In Pulwama, however, the NC candidate Khalil Muhammad Bandh, suffered a significant defeat, losing by over 8,000 votes to PDP’s youth leader Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra .

It was Paras' maiden election. Of the remaining seats in south Kashmir, three went to NC's alliance partners—the Congress and CPI (M)—while one was claimed by an independent candidate. The party had not fielded candidates in Dooru, Anantnag , Tral and Kulgam in favor of Congress and CPI (M) veteran MY Tarigami. The left Kulgam leader made it five in a row since winning his maiden assembly elections in 1996.

NC also did well in Chenab and Pir-Panchal regions of Jammu.

Coming back to PDP, the rise of the party in J&K politics had been credited largely to its strong performance in south Kashmir, where it secured 10 of its 16 seats during the maiden assembly elections in 2002.

Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who had served as Union Home Minister in VP Singh lead Jan Morcha coalition government for 10 months- way back in 1989 and Union Minister of Tourism for State in Congress government became the Chief Minister of JK for the first time.

He held the chair for three years under a power sharing agreement with Congress after which Ghulam Nabi Azad took over. Mufti had succeeded veteran NC leader Farooq Abdullah who had held the chair for three terms. That year, NC's dominance eroded, as its seat count plummeted from 57 in 1996 to just 28 with even Omar Abdullah – losing his maiden assembly election.

Only two of those seats had come from south Kashmir- Anantnag and Tral. Congress and CPI (M) had bagged the remaining four seats- each getting two. In 2008, although the PDP failed to form the government, it won 21 seats, with 12 coming from south Kashmir, and made significant gains in north Kashmir as well.

The party's vote share also increased significantly. The NC, which went on to form a coalition government with Congress, managed to maintain its tally at 28 seats but saw its influence in south Kashmir diminish further to just one seat.

The PDP's ascendancy continued in the 2014 elections, where it broke into NC's stronghold in Srinagar, winning five out of eight seats. NC’s total tally fell to 15, with only three seats from south Kashmir.

The party bagged 28 seats, this time 11 from its stronghold South Kashmir and formed the government after a post-poll alliance with BJP, which had won 25 seats all in the Jammu region. Mufti became the Chief Minister for the second time, but this time his stint lasted only 10 months as the veteran leader died. Following this his daughter Mehbooba Mufti took over the reins. The coalition, however, collapsed in 2018 when the BJP withdrew its support, leading to Governor’s rule in the state.

A year later, on August 5, 2019, J&K’s special status was revoked, and it was reconstituted as a Union Territory (UT), with Ladakh carved out as a separate UT. The legislative assembly remained defunct until this year, when the Election Commission of India announced the first assembly elections in the UT.

The three-phased elections, held on September 18, 25, and October 1, culminated in the declaration of results on October 10.

NC's resurgence, especially in south Kashmir, where it had been nearly wiped out, has raised questions about the PDP's ability to reclaim its lost ground in the future. However , a political analyst believes "The party isn't dead, but it is struggling. The PDP will have a hard time bouncing back but with Mehbooba, and young leaders like Waheed Parra and Iltija trying putting in all the efforts, I hope it will happen sooner or later.