Just 1,132 More Votes in Gurez, The Seat With 97% Muslim Population, Could Have Opened BJP’s Account in Kashmir Region

Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party failed to make its entry in the Kashmir region in the just concluded assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir, the narrative could have been different if the party had got 1,132 more votes in Gurez.

The seat with more than 97 per cent Muslim population polled 17,962 votes, as per the data from the Election Commission of India. The analysis of the data by News18 shows that the BJP got 7,246 votes, 40.34 per cent of the total, and came second. BJP’s Faqeer Mohammad Khan lost the poll by a margin of 1,132 votes against Nazir Ahmad Khan of the National Conference, who got 8,378 (46.64 per cent).

The seat with 22,291 registered voters witnessed 78.04 per cent voter turnout in the third and the last phase held on October 1.

As per the estimates available with the party, the seat had just three per cent of Hindu and Sikh population. While Gurez was just an example, there were 12 more seats where the party gathered more votes than the estimated percentage of Hindu and Sikh population in respective seats. In total, in 13 of the 19 seats that BJP contested in the Kashmir Valley, the party’s vote share was greater than the estimated percentage of Hindu and Sikh population.

While the National Conference emerged as the largest party in terms of seats bagged – 42 of 90, the BJP, with 29 seats, is the largest party in terms of total votes bagged (14.62 lakh) and vote share (25.64 per cent). The National Conference got 23.43 per cent of votes and 13.36 lakh votes.

In a post on social media platform X, BJP leader Amit Malviya praised his party saying they contested 19 seats in Kashmir. “We lost Gurez in Baramulla by a whisker and finished second in two seats and third in four. Impressive performance for a debut of sorts, post abrogation of Art 370,” he said.

Habbakadal was another seat where the BJP finished second. The victory margin here was 9,538 votes as Shamim Firdous from the National Congress bagged 12,437 votes against 2,899 votes to BJP’s Ashok Kumar Bhat. There are 95,752 registered voters in the seat that recorded a poor voter turnout of just 19.81 per cent. A total of 18,970 votes were from EVM and 259 from ballot.

The four seats where the party finished third were – Anantnag West; Rajpora; Srigufwara- Bijbehara and Shangus-Anantnag East.

In three seats, the total votes bagged by the BJP were below 1,000 – Pampore (957); Channapora (722); Eidgah (479). The party finished fourth in Channapora while it was eighth in terms of votes bagged in the remaining two seats.

In terms of ranking, in Bandipora (1,196 votes) the BJP came at the 12th position while in Sonawari it finished at tenth with 1,024 votes.

The newly formed union territory witnessed its first assembly election and the National Congress is set to form its government.