When the UPA-led govt suggested the reconstruction of the 16th-century Mughal road connecting the border districts of Poonch and Rajouri in Jammu with the Shopian district in the Kashmir Valley, it could not have imagined that the very suggestion would come back to bite it in the future.
The Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency has historically been a battleground between the Abdullahs' National Conference (NC) and the Muftis' Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Interestingly, both are part of the INDI alliance, yet aim to field candidates on all J&K seats.
The fight has evolved into a has become a survival contest for the PDP and the NC, more for the former than the latter.
Anantnag had always been a PDP stronghold.
But in 2019, PDP supremo and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti finished third, after The NC candidate Hasnain Masoodi won it, defeating Ghulam Ahmad Mir of the Congress.
The delimitation commission headed by Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai redrew the political map in 2022. The former State had six Lok Sabha constituencies, two in the Jammu region (Jammu and Udhampur), three in Kashmir (Srinagar, Baramulla, and Anantnag), and one in Ladakh. Now, the Jammu region, while retaining its two original seats, shares a part of the Anantnag-Rajouri seat with Kashmir.
In the constituency, 11 Assembly segments are in the Kashmir region’s Shopian, Kulgam, and Anantnag districts, and 7 are in the Jammu region’s Poonch and Rajouri districts.
Previously a Muslim majority, the addition of Poonch-Rajouri has changed the demography of the constituency.
The newly added Hindu populace may prove to impact the electoral results hugely, giving the BJP a chance to enter the leaderboard from Kashmir.
Notable figures like former PDP president and chief minister late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, his daughter Mehbooba Mufti, and senior Congress leader Mohammad Shafi Quraishi have represented this seat.
Previous elections:
2014 Lok Sabha Elections
Mehbooba Mufti won the seat in the 2014 general elections for the second time, defeating NC's Mirza Mehboob Beg by a significant margin. She secured 200,429 votes, securing a vote share of approximately 52 per cent, while her closest competitor received 135,012 votes.
2019 Lok Sabha Elections
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Hasnain Masoodi of the NC secured victory with 40,180 votes amidst a close contest against the INC’s Ghulam Ahmad Mir, defeating Mehbooba Mufti and other candidates.
PDP supremo Mehbooba Mufti, who previously held the seat, received 30,524 votes, with a reduced vote share of 24 per cent.
The election witnessed a low turnout–approximately 12.86%, which some attribute to security concerns caused by terrorist threats.
A total of 18 candidates contested the election.
The NC’s nominated veteran leader Mian Altaf Ahmad for the Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat is a Gujjar leader, indicating the party’s attempt to regain some ground, as the Gujjar-Bakarwal community is present in huge numbers in the region.
Joining the race is former J&K CM Ghulam Nabi Azad, who announced his candidacy for the same seat under the banner of his newly formed Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP).
Azad, a Congress veteran, left the grand old party due to personal differences with the party leadership in 2022. He went on to say that he left the party after over 5 decades because of Rahul Gandhi.
Meanwhile, Mehbooba Mufti's PDP is yet to announce its candidate.
Once considered the Mufti family’s bastion, the seat favours others, as was evident through Mehbooba Mufti's defeat in the 2019 elections.
This can be credited to the PDP’s earlier alliance with the BJP, which led to people going against them out of spite.
Whispers in the political corridors say that there is a chance that Azad might merge his party with the BJP upon victory and that he has unofficial support from the same, but nothing can be said with certainty.
To establish its electoral presence in the region, whether the saffron party fields its candidate or not, is still unknown.
For a short while, some news about the BJP state President Ravinder Raina's candidature for the seat had been floated, however, there is no official confirmation yet.
On May 7, the constituency will go to the polls.
After the last PDP-BJP government collapsed, the former State, now a Union territory was brought under Central rule.
Since then, scores of political leaders from prominent parties such as the NC, the PDP, and the Congress have switched over to the BJP or other parties such as Ghulam Nabi Azad’s DPAP and the Altaf Bukhari-led Apni Party.
We will know what the future holds for the Anantnag constituency on the 4th of June.
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