Opinion: How BJP won most votes but didn't win Jammu and Kashmir

The Bharatiya Janata Party recorded a higher vote share than the National Conference. But it failed to break into the Valley even as it swept Jammu.

The National Conference-Congress alliance won the Jammu and Kashmir polls with a clear mandate, ending a vicious cycle of hung Assemblies in the past three elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party emerged as the party with the highest vote share. But it failed to break into the Valley even as it swept Jammu.

Its experiment of creating new Scheduled Tribes reserved seats and gaining the support of Paharis didn’t work. At the same time, contrary to expectations, smaller parties like the People’s Conference, the Awami Ittehad Party, the Apni Party, the Democratic Progressive Azad Party, and independent candidates did not significantly dent the NC’s chances in the Valley.

2024 Clear Verdict

The NC-Congress-Communist Party of India (Marxist) alliance won 49 seats. The BJP won 29, the Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party bagged three, and others scored nine — this included a debut by the Aam Aadmi Party in the Assembly. The BJP bagged around 26 per cent of the vote (+3 per cent), the NC 23 per cent (+2 per cent), the Congress 12 per cent (-6 per cent), the PDP nine per cent (-14 per cent), and Others 30 per cent (+15 per cent). The BJP’s seat tally was the same as its general election leads.

Others gained largely at the expense of the PDP in the Valley. In 2002, in its first state elections, the PDP won nine per cent of votes, while Others won 30 per cent. In 2014, the PDP reached 23 per cent, while Others declined to 15 per cent.

In the 2024 elections, the BJP recorded a higher vote share than the NC. Both parties did not contest all the seats — the BJP only 62 out of 90, leaving 28 seats in the Valley, while NC contested 56 seats in alliance with the Congress, the CPI(M), and the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party. This included five friendly fights with the grand old party.

In 41 seats, the NC-Congress alliance bagged more than 40 per cent of the vote share and in 21 seats, the BJP recorded the same. The average vote share of the winning candidate was 47 per cent in this election. The NC recorded a higher strike rate of 75 per cent, while the BJP was lower at 47 per cent. The saffron party failed to win a single seat in the Valley again. On the other hand, the NC won seven seats from Jammu.

Demographics make winning difficult for BJP

Jammu has 43 seats and Kashmir Valley 47, post-delimitation. While Jammu is a Hindu-dominated region, Kashmir Valley is Muslim-dominated. However, contrary to popular belief, the whole of Jammu is not dominated by Hindus. There are 16 seats in five districts where Muslims are in the majority: Doda, Kishtwar, Ramban, Poonch, and Rajouri.

In effect, there are 63 seats with a Muslim-majority population and 27 with a Hindu majority (including Reasi, which has an almost equal population of the two religious groups). So 70 per cent of the seats are demographically challenging for the BJP. In effect, Jammu and Kashmir is two and a half states/Union Territories into one. The Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, the Hindu-majority Jammu, and some Muslim-majority Jammu districts.

The BJP recorded a whopping 53 per cent vote share in Hindu-dominated Jammu, winning 24 of the 27 seats. The NC-Congress alliance bagged 26 per cent vote share and just one seat. Independent candidates won two seats.

However, in Muslim-majority Jammu areas, the NC-Congress alliance bagged 40 per cent vote share and seven of the 16 seats. The BJP recorded a 34 per cent vote share, winning five seats. The AAP bagged one seat, while independent candidates won three. In two of these four seats, the BJP finished a close runner-up.

ST-reserved seats gamble failed for BJP

Post delimitation, Jammu and Kashmir had nine seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes: five in Muslim-majority Jammu, one in Hindu-majority Jammu, and three seats in the Kashmir valley. The BJP also included Paharis in the ST list, with around eight per cent population statewide, fulfilling their long-pending demand, to woo them before the polls.

The Pahari-speaking population is more than 50 per cent in Poonch and Rajouri in Muslim-majority Jammu regions. The saffron party hoped this strategy would neutralise the demographic disadvantage in this part of Jammu. However, this strategy didn’t work on the ground.

BJP didn’t win a single ST-reserved seat. The NC-Congress alliance won seven and others won two. The BJP trailed the NC-Congress alliance by a whopping 15 percentage points in the ST reserved seats. It finished runner-up in five seats, with smaller parties and the PDP pushing it to the third slot and beyond in four seats. The PDP bagged a 12 per cent vote share on these seats, three per cent higher than their overall vote share. This also damaged BJP’s prospects.

The BJP, however, swept all the seven Scheduled Caste reserved seats. It recorded 54 per cent vote share on these seats, 30 per cent more than the ST-reserved seats. The fact that all these seats are in the Hindu-majority Jammu region provided a boost to its performance.

Alleged proxies failed to dent NC in Valley

After Engineer Rashid’s victory in the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat, defeating Omar Abdullah from jail, there was a feeling that a section of voters, especially youth, were looking for newer faces/parties beyond the legacy parties in the Kashmir valley, fed up with dynastic politics. Others were leading in 15 Assembly segments in the Valley in the 2024 general elections.

This saw a rise in independent candidates and smaller parties contesting the Assembly polls. The BJP strategically didn’t put up candidates in 28 of the 47 Valley seats, backing independents directly or indirectly, hoping they would split the mandate and dent the NC’s chances.

The NC in particular was cautious after its loss in the general elections. It spread the narrative that these Independents and smaller parties are the BJP’s B-team, and if people vote for them, it would strengthen the chances of the BJP coming to power and installing a Hindu CM from Jammu. Rashid’s release gave credence to this theory.

While these parties performed well in the Valley in terms of vote share, 33 per cent in the aggregate in South, 40 per cent in Central and 50 per cent in North Kashmir, they couldn’t perform as some pollsters and observers expected. The division of votes between the PDP and significant other candidates also helped the NC-Congress alliance. The PDP bagged a 23 per cent vote share in South and 17 per cent in Central Kashmir, two to three times its statewide vote share, helping the NC split the Opposition vote. The NC-Congress alliance swept the Valley, winning 41 of the 47 seats.

Overall, Others doubled their vote share from 15 per cent to 30 per cent. But could not convert this into seats, gaining just two seats compared to 2014. However, their influence significantly improved as they finished winner/runner-up in 41 seats, up from 14, making the PDP irrelevant.

Jammu and Kashmir gave a clear verdict, the number of close contest seats declined from 52 to 29, while the role of third parties as spoilers reduced from 52 to just 30 seats, where they bagged more votes than the margin of victory.

(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)