Yawar Hussain
Srinagar: With the Congress party putting in its worst-ever performance in the Jammu region in the current election since its entry in the erstwhile state in 1967, the party was reduced to this state courtesy of the flawed organisational structure, ideological doldrums, beating around the dead horse leaders, alleged corruption and lack lustre campaigning.
The party was locked in a one-to-one fight on 32 seats in the Jammu region against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) among which the party had put candidates on 29 while leaving Vijaypur, Kathua and Udhampur East uncontested.
Among 29 seats, out of 43 in the Jammu region, the Congress won just one seat of Rajouri with a paltry margin of 1403. All 21 of its Hindu candidates in the Jammu region lost. Also, Congress lost four out of five seats it had won in the Jammu division in 2014 including Surankote, Reasi, Banihal and Inderwal.
In the Doda assembly segment, Congress candidate Sheikh Riaz stood fifth, way behind the winning candidate from Aam Aadmi Party. The runner-up on the seat was from BJP while two more candidates were ahead of the Congress candidate.
Like Riaz, his party colleagues, Krishan Dev Singh, MS Kajal and Shabir Khan lost their security deposits. Still, unlike Riaz, the trio did better by being on the fourth spot in Samba, Bani and Thanamandi constituencies respectively.
In Banihal, the former J&K Congress chief Viqar Rasool was pushed to third spot behind the winning National Conference candidate and the runner-up from the Peoples Democratic Party. The dismal performance of Wani came even after Rahul Gandhi campaigned for him in these elections.
Similarly, in Baderwah, Jasrota, Nagrota, Ramgarh and Shri Mata Vaishno Devi constituencies, the Congress candidates stood at third spot. Unlike Wani, the Congress candidates in Baderwah, Jasrota, Nagrota, Ramgarh and Shri Mata Vaishno Devi constituencies lost their security deposits.
Sources within the party put the onus of the current mess on the tenures of former J&K in-charge Rajani Patil and his successor and incumbent in-charge Bharatsinh Solanki.
“Patil did nothing to restructure the party in Jammu after Azad’s exit. In league with Viqar Rasool Wani, she only gave entry to those who could buy their way in,” a Jammu-based Congress leader alleged.
“Bharatsinh Solanki didn’t change the system left behind by Rajani leading to a debacle in the parliament polls as well. Raman Bhalla was on board when the spending of the party’s election fund for two parliament seats came under question,” the leader added.
Sources within the party reveal that under Wani a barrage of general secretaries and vice presidents, with no ground presence, had taken over leaving the party clueless about the demands on the ground.
“Photos of political nobodies, who entered the party, were sent to Delhi and presented as grass root leaders before the parliament polls,” another party leader from Jammu alleged, adding that this led to aspiring politicians in Jammu joining the BJP.
“BJP got an SSP level officer and a KAS officer to contest, both won. While BJP reached out to civil society groups in Jammu, Congress leadership was busy in alleged corrupt practices.”
In the backdrop of these practices, which the high command in Delhi got informed about, Karra was brought on the scene to weed out the mess but the elections had already been declared by then.
Looking North Walking South
Political observers opine that Congress, which has won most of its seats since 2002 from the Jammu division, has had a Kashmir-centric policy while the BJP puts Jammu first narrative at the pedestal.
As per official data, the Congress won 27 seats from Jammu in 1967; 28 in 1972; 10 in 1977; 23 in 1983; 20 in 1987; four in 1996; 15 in 2002; 13 in 2008 and five in 2014.
In this election, the party contested more seats in the Jammu division than a bunch in Kashmir Valley.
Author and academician Rekha Choudhary said that the reason for Congress’s debacle is simple, the party didn’t work hard.
“They announced the mandates for Jammu plains just a couple of days before the last day of nomination filing. Their leaders have done nothing for two years since delimitation. They couldn’t decide who would fight where leading to this last-moment mess,” Choudhary said.
She said Congress had been vocally asking for elections but hadn’t prepared for it till the last moment. “They couldn’t also take advantage of the anti-incumbency around issues like the crippled economy of Jammu owing to Darbar move stoppage, unemployment, liquor contracts, toll tax, and security of land and jobs. Anti-incumbency doesn’t work automatically, one has to earn people’s trust.”
A Jammu-based journalist said the Congress members moved towards greener pastures compounding the party’s problems in the Jammu region over the years.
“Also, BJP’s aggressive campaign in Jammu, which portrayed Congress as an anti-Jammu party, further eroded its support base. BJP capitalised on this perception, positioning itself as the protector of Jammu’s interests, particularly after the removal of Articles 370,” the journalist said.
While the BJP has been pandering to Jammu’s plains and promising a Hindu Dogra chief minister, the Congress appears reluctant to counter or support it.
A Jammu-based Congress leader said a delegation of J&K Bar Association and traders’ bodies of Jammu had unequivocally told the J&K Congress in-charge Bharatsinh Solanki that the party won’t be getting any votes in Jammu because of the party’s Kashmir-centric approach.
“They told him that you have been winning seats from Jammu mostly but the president is always from Kashmir. Your working committee members are from Kashmir. BJP talks about a Jammu-based chief minister, you take no stand on any issue clearly,” the leader quoted the delegation saying before the 2024 parliament polls.
Caught in the doldrums, the Congress exudes being a party with nothing to offer to both the regions even though it has ruled J&K much longer than the BJP since 1967.
Candidature Conundrum
The Congress’s woes in Jammu started with the setting up of a screening committee on August 1 this year. Congress’s member parliament from Gurdaspur Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa was made Chairman with Anto Antony and Sachin Rao as members. Rao, AICC In-charge Trainings, is believed to be a close aide of Rahul Gandhi.
Besides them, J&K in-charge Bharatsinh Solanki, the then J&K president Vikar Rasool Wani and J&K co-in-charge Manoj Yadav were ex-officio members of this committee.
Sources within the party reveal that the screening committee received recommendations from the team J&K only who had paid no heed to the demands on the ground.
A junior leader, wishing anonymity, said the list was prepared first and then the show of taking ground feedback was initiated in Jammu.
The four seats of Suchetgarh, Bahu, RS Pura-Jammu South, and Chhamb depict the problems Congress faced while dealing with the distribution of tickets in the Jammu plains.
In Suchetgarh, since 2002, Congress had fielded two candidates, Gharu Ram Choudhary and R.S Chib, who both went to the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) headed by Ghulam Nabi Azad. Choudhary contested the current election on the DPAP ticket against Congress and BJP.
Also, the two-time runner-up on the Suchetgarh seat since the 2002 elections, Taranjeet Singh Tony, had joined Congress but wasn’t given the mandate from the seat. He was shifted to the newly carved out Bahu seat which comprises parts of the erstwhile Gandhinagar and Nagrota seats.
For Suchetgarh, the party fielded Bhushan Lal against BJP veteran Professor Gharu Ram Bhagat who defeated him convincingly. Professor Gharu Ram Bhagat, earlier MLA RS Pura, had left the BJP in 2016 for the Congress after being denied a mandate but returned to the saffron party in 2019 after feeling “disillusioned” in the grand old party.
In the current election, the BJP shifted Bhagat to Suchetgarh owing to the delimitation and he won.
Tony, who Congress from Suchetgarh to Bahu, wanted, as per Congress insiders, to contest from R.S Pura-Jammu South where he had good support.
“Due to back-channel manoeuvrings by working presidents Raman Bhalla and Tara Chand, Bhalla managed the so-called safe seat of R.S Pura-Jammu South for himself. He has lost now but Tony also faced the music because of them,” a party leader privy to the developments said.
An unverified viral audio recording of a congressman blaming Bhalla for the mess in Jammu is donning the political circles.
In Chhamb, Tara Chand repeated the “safe” seat model for himself while denying the party ticket to former MP Madan Lal Sharma’s son Satish Sharma. Sharma defeated both the Chand and the BJP candidate for the seat. He has now extended support to NC after the results.
Chhamb, with 80 per cent upper caste populace, was de-reserved in 2022 by delimitation. Chand, who had won the seat twice earlier, was only favoured by reservation.
Bani
The Congress wrested the Bani assembly segment once in 2002 and lost it in 2008 and 2014 to the BJP. Congress’s winning candidate in 2002 polls, Prem Sagar Aziz, left the party in 2018, first for the NC and later joined the BJP in 2021. The Congress couldn’t gauge the mood on the ground for the current winner Dr. Rameshwar Singh who won as an independent against the BJP’s Jewan Lal.
Congress put its weight behind a hitherto unknown MS Kajal who secured just 1970 votes and was 16702 behind the winner. The missing ear of the Congress from the ground in Jammu is written all over its losses in the region.
Rekha Choudhary opines that the story of Congress loss in Jammu is the quintessence of how to lose an election.
Basohli
In the current election, the Congress lost the seat by 16034 votes with Choudhary Lal Singh being defeated by BJP’s Darshan Kumar. In the 2014 polls, Singh joined the BJP and won against the then Congress candidate Jagdish Raj Sapolia. Sapolia, a BJP leader till the 2014 polls, had joined the Congress after Singh’s entry into the right-wing party.
However, with Singh leaving the BJP, Sapolia joined back the BJP in 2019 but didn’t get the party mandate in 2024. On the other hand, Singh again secured the Congress mandate even after losing the 2024 parliament election against the BJP earlier in June this year.
Interestingly, the NC has been a runner-up on the seat twice in the 2008 and 2014 polls.
Bilawar
In Bilawar, the Congress candidate Manohar Lal Sharma lost the current election by 21368 votes to BJP’s Satish Kumar Sharma. What the BJP did in Bilawar in the current election is the quintessence of the party’s organisational prowess and what the Congress lacks.
In 2014 polls, the BJP had won the seat by 17975 votes with former deputy chief minister Dr Nirmal Singh defeating Manohar Lal Sharma. In the current election, the BJP denied a ticket to Dr Singh and brought in Satish Kumar Sharma owing to the demand from the party’s ground workers. While Dr Singh held on to the saffron party, the Congress gave the mandate to Manohar Lal Sharma again even though in 2021, he had left the party for Ghulam Nabi Azad’s DPAP.
Also, to coerce Congress, Manohar publicly announced on September 4 this year that he would contest as an independent if the party didn’t officially nominate him as the candidate.
The Congress budged under pressure as it had no option due to the party not cultivating leaders in the Jammu plains, from where it has been winning the major chunk of its seats since 2002.
Bishnah
Bishnah, a Scheduled Caste reserved seat, was wrested in 2014 polls by NC even though a BJP wave swept the region back then. Earlier in 2008 and 2002, Ashwani Kumar Sharma had won the seat as an independent. The Congress’s face in the area since 2008, Gulchain Singh Charak left the party in 2015 while Ashwani Kumar Sharma joined the BJP in 2014. This time around the BJP didn’t award Sharma a ticket but he didn’t leave the saffron bandwagon unlike Congress, whose senior leader from the area, Devraj Bhagat joined the BJP last month.
While the BJP has managed to keep three big leaders—Ashwani Kumar Sharma, Devraj Bhagat and Rajeev Kumar (current winner)— in their flock IN Bishnah, the Congress is as rudderless in Bishnah as it is in other areas of the Jammu region.
Jammu East and West
The Jammu East seat has been wrested by the BJP four times out of six since 1987 and Jammu West five times.
In Jammu East, the BJP fielded Ashok Kumar Khajuria in the 2002 and 2008 elections. He won the 2008 polls and lost in 2002 polls to Congress’s Yogesh Sawhney. However, Sawhney didn’t contest in the 2008 and 2014 elections from the seat while continuing in Congress.
In 2014, both BJP and Congress changed their candidates for the seat with the former going with Rajesh Gupta and the latter with Vikram Malhotra. While Gupta passed away in 2022, the party retained Ashok Kumar Khajuria in its ranks while also poaching Vikram Malhotra this year from the J&K Apni Party as he already had left Congress citing “lack of leadership”.
However, the BJP in this election gave the mandate for the seat to Yudhvir Sethi, its J&K Vice President, while Congress repeated its two-decade-old winner Yogesh Sawhney from the seat, who has now lost bitterly.
In the Jammu West seat, the Congress’s 2014 candidate Surinder Singh Shingari left the party for Aam Admi Party while its veteran leader and two-time winner from the seat Mangat Ram Sharma has passed away. In this election, the party got Thakur Manmohan Singh, a former deputy mayor, to contest but to no avail.
On the other hand, the BJP dropped its 2014 winner and former J&K chief Sat Pal Sharma from the seat in this election. The reason was simple, demand from the ground for Arvind Sharma who won the seat with over twenty thousand votes against the Congress candidate.
Marh
Congress’s three-time candidate for the Marh seat Balwan Singh left the party for DPAP only to return but with no vigour to offer. However, instead of finding a young face on the newly reserved Scheduled Caste seat, the Congress fielded Mulla Ram, an old leader who had last won the seat in 1987. He hadn’t contested since. The BJP dropped its former MLA Sukhnandan Choudhary from the seat and opted for its young leader Surinder Kumar who heads the Block Development Council Marh. He won with a margin of 23086 votes.
Samba and Ramgarh
In Samba and the newly carved Ramgarh seat, the Congress again faced a difficult choice because it lacked leaders in its ranks. Yash Pal Kundal, a two-time runner-up on the Samba seat in 2014 and 2008, on the Panther’s Party ticket, was given the Congress mandate in the current election from Ramgarh. The decision to shift Kundal from Samba to Ramgarh was inspired by the BJP also shifting its 2014 Samba winner Dr Devinder Manyal to Ramgarh. The shifting helped the BJP as they won but cost Congress hugely as they lost Samba to former NC veteran and incumbent BJP candidate Surjeet Singh Salathia who had joined the BJP a few years back. Congress had no good candidate for the Samba seat, evident from their fourth position on the seat.
Reasi and Shri Mata Vaishno Devi
The Congress faced a similar situation on the Reasi seat from which a portion was carved out and joined with areas of Gulabgarh to create the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi seat. In Reasi, Congress had been fielding Jugal Kishore since 2002, who had won the seat once in the three polls. On the other hand, the BJP had fielded Baldev Singh twice in three polls on the Reasi seat among which he had won once. The party replaced him (Singh) in the 2014 polls with Ajay Nanda but Singh never left the party.
Owing to the creation of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi seat, the BJP fielded Baldev Singh on the new seat while Congress couldn’t move Kishore as he had already deserted the ship for DPAP in 2022. However, Kishore did fight the 2024 election from the new seat but as an independent and came second, way ahead of the Congress’s current candidate Bhupinder Singh.
Meanwhile, in Reasi, BJP sensed the mood on the ground and replaced Ajay Nanda with Kuldeep Raj Dubey while Congress in a last-ditch effort managed to get back its deserter Mumtaz Khan from the Apni Party as a candidate on the seat. However, Khan also met the same fate as most of the Congress leaders in the Jammu region.
Bad Icing On Bad Cake
The bad icing on the bad organisational cake was topped by lack-lustre campaigning in Jammu plains where the Congress was locked in a one-to-one fight with the BJP.
In Jammu’s plains, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi campaigned just once by holding a rally at JK Resort ground and interacting with professionals from the region in a five-star hotel.
Also, Congress’s star campaigner Priyanka Gandhi Vadra campaigned just in the Bishnah segment for a few hours while her helicopter couldn’t land in the Billawar constituency on the same day.
Congress President Malikarjun Kharge also campaigned just once in Jammu plains in the constituency of Kathua.
The result was that Congress won zero out of 24 seats in the Jammu plains.
Rekha Choudhary said the central Congress leadership seemed to have given up on Jammu campaigning and were more focussed on Kashmir leading Omar Abdullah stepping in to remind the Congress but to no avail.
An introspection has begun in the party but would the heads roll?
