Winning Combination Or Fractured Mandate? What NC-Congress Alliance Means for J&K Assembly Polls

The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference has announced an alliance with the Congress for the upcoming J&K assembly elections. The seat-sharing arrangement is still being worked out but the decision is significant in many ways. National Conference president Farooq Abdullah told the media he was delighted that an alliance had decided to fight the polls. The development came after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and MP Rahul Gandhi met Farooq and his son Omar at their residence in Srinagar for an hour.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which is a member of the INDIA bloc, has been left out again. During the April-June Lok Sabha elections, the NC and Congress had gone together, saying there was limited scope for bringing in the PDP with only six seats, though a war of words had ensued between the two regional parties. The alliance though included the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led by MY Tarigami in the Valley.

Jammu and Kashmir will vote in three phases on September 18, September 25, and October 1 for a total of 90 assembly constituencies. The counting of votes will take place on October 4.

These will be the first assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir as a union territory and without Ladakh as a part of it after the abrogation of J&K’s special status in August 2019. Ladakh was turned into a UT but without a legislature. Ladakh had four seats in the J&K assembly, out of which three were won by the Congress in the 2014 assembly elections.

The NC and Congress are yet to decide on some seats. The Congress, according to sources, wants nine seats, including Tral and Central Shaltang, but the NC is unwilling on some of them. The formula, sources said, is based on the candidates and their winning abilities. “We (NC-Congress) have been able to build a consensus on most seats. On some seats, Congress local leaders aren’t willing to give and, on a few seats, we aren’t willing. We will sit again today and try to bring others seats in alliance,” former chief minister Omar Abdullah said.

Why National Conference is in driver’s seat

The National Conference won two out of the three Lok Sabha seats it fielded candidates on while Omar Abdullah lost from the Baramulla constituency. The Congress lost two seats in Jammu to the Bharatiya Janata Party and one in Ladakh to an independent candidate, who is linked to the NC.

The data of the assembly segments from the Lok Sabha elections show that the National Conference would emerge as the single largest party with victory in 34 assembly segments. This has made the party believe that it would win handsomely in the assembly polls. In 2019, the NC won 30 assembly segments in the Lok Sabha polls.

In the recent Lok Sabha polls, Omar lost to a dark horse, jailed Independent candidate Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Engineer Rashid, who many believe won due to a sympathy wave after relentless campaigning by his sons who told the people that the victory of their father would ensure his release. Analysts believe Rashid also got votes from those who supported separatism in the Valley. He got the highest number of votes in 15 assembly segments out of 18. The NC believes it can clinch better results in these segments that it lost. The Congress performed poorly in both 2019 and 2024 and won just 16 and seven assembly segments respectively.

In the Lok Sabha polls, the National Conference also won many segments in the Jammu region, including Nowshera, Rajouri ST, Surankore, Poonch Haveli, and others. Whether the voting pattern remains the same this time is a larger question.

For the Congress, it’s about defeating the BJP and gaining momentum after the exit of senior J&K leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who also took with him several other senior leaders and formed his own party, which didn’t do well. With the alliance, the National Conference will kill the narrative built by parties in the Valley of the Abdullahs joining hands with the BJP in case of a fractured mandate, observers say.

Fractured mandate looms?

The BJP has a significant foothold in the Jammu region where it expects to win most of the seats. In Kashmir, the party has previously failed to gain any solid foothold but has decided to go solo on all the 90 seats. The BJP, analysts say, may not be able to get a huge turnaround in the Valley in these assembly elections.

The assembly segment-wise voting data shows that no party had a majority while the BJP stood as the second largest party but slipped one assembly segment down, from 30 in 2019 to 29 in 2024. If the voting pattern doesn’t change much, a fractured mandate looms in Jammu and Kashmir. Earlier this year, Omar Abdullah had told reporters that his party wouldn’t ally with the BJP. “Let me make it clear that there is no food, window, or even a crack open for the NDA. We are not going to knock at their doors and there is no possibility of us joining them,” he had said while reacting to a report that Farooq Abdullah had hinted at the possibility of his party joining the NDA.

The 2024 Lok Sabha election data shows that the INDIA bloc in J&K, comprising the NC, PDP, and Congress, had a combined tally of 46 assembly segments, while the majority mark is 45.

To counter the rise of the NC and Congress, the BJP has brought Ram Madhav, its old hand in Jammu and Kashmir. Madhav, who was appointed the J&K in-charge, is known to have connections in all parties of the Valley. He was also credited for bringing two ideologically divergent parties, BJP and PDP, together in 2014, and his experience could help the saffron party in case of a fractured mandate.

Political parties floated after the abrogation of Article 370 sections, which are called proxies of the BJP by regional outfits like NC and PDP, couldn’t make a significant difference in the electoral landscape of the Valley. The BJP was also banking on their victories to later form a government.

This leaves a larger question: will any party be in a position to form a government in J&K?