SRINAGAR, India: Kashmir’s biggest pro-India political party on Tuesday won most seats in the recent election for a largely powerless local government in Indian-controlled 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.
National Conference, or NC, won 41 seats and was leading in one constituency, mainly from the Kashmir Valley, the heartland of the anti-India rebellion, the data showed. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party secured 27 seats and was leading in two, 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.
Nearly 8.9 million people were eligible to vote in the election that began on Sept. 18 and concluded on Oct. 1. The overall turnout was 64 percent across the three phases, according to official data.
It was first such vote in a decade and the first since Modi’s Hindu nationalist government scrapped the Muslim-majority region’s long-held semi-autonomy in 2019.
The unprecedented move downgraded and divided the former state into two centrally governed union territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir. Both are ruled directly by New Delhi through its appointed administrators along with unelected bureaucrats and security setup. The move — which largely resonated in India and among Modi supporters — was mostly opposed in Kashmir as an assault on its identity and autonomy amid fears that it would pave way for demographic changes in the region.
The region has since been on edge with civil liberties curbed and media gagged.
India and Pakistan each administer a part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two of their three wars over the territory since they gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Early results may give an indication of the vote’s direction. However, exit polls by major television channels in last two days projected the regional National Conference emerging as a single largest party followed by the Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Such mandate is likely to be seen as a referendum against Modi’s 2019 move.
The National Conference fought the election in alliance with India’s main opposition Congress party.
Their coalition may still need support of some seats to form the government, that is likely to come from Peoples Democratic Party, another Kashmiri group. Five seats are appointed and 90 elected, so a party or coalition would need at least 48 of the 95 total seats to form a government.
The vote will allow Kashmir to have its own truncated government and a regional legislature, called an assembly, rather than being directly under New Delhi’s rule.
However, there will be a limited transition of power from New Delhi to the assembly as Kashmir will remain a “union territory” — directly controlled by the federal government — with India’s Parliament as its main legislator. Kashmir’s statehood must be restored for the new government to have powers similar to other states of India.
The region’s last assembly election was held in 2014, after which the BJP for the first time ruled in a coalition with the local Peoples Democratic Party. But the government collapsed in 2018, after the BJP withdrew from the coalition.
Polls in the past have been marked with violence, boycotts and vote-rigging, even though India called them a victory over separatism.
Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
