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Journalism of Courage
If there was a reflection of the rout National Conference faced in Kashmir for the first time in 60 years, it was the loss of its president and Union minister Farooq Abdullah. In his bastion, it was Abdullah’s first defeat of his 40-year political career when he lost to PDP’s Tariq Hameed Karra by over 40,000 votes.
Though the flamboyant Union minister locked himself inside his residence, his son and CM Omar Abdullah conceded defeat.
“I accept the moral responsibility (for this loss),” the CM said in Srinagar. “We lost because we focused on national issues while PDP focused on local issues”.
The fingers were crossed from early morning — no senior NC leader turned up at the Sheri Kashmir International Convention Centre — the counting centre for Srinagar. “We know PDP has made inroads but we will win,” said NC’s youth leader Salman Sagar, the only one from the party present there. By late afternoon, even Sagar had left the counting centre.
The result is also set to impact the upcoming assembly polls. As the counting for the three seats of Kashmir ended, it was a virtual rout for the ruling NC and its coalition partner Congress as they lost all seats to opposition PDP in Kashmir and two seats, Jammu and Udhampur, to BJP.
This is the first time since the PDP was formed in 1999 that the party managed to bag all the three Parliament seats in the Valley. Political analysts predict that these results could build pressure on the CM as two former CMs — Farooq Abdullah in (Srinagar) and Ghulam Nabi Azad (in Udhampur) — lost. Azad was contesting LS for the first time in the state and lost the seat with a margin of 60,000 votes to the BJP candidate.
PDP president Mehbooba Mufti won by a margin of 65,0417 votes defeating NC candidate and sitting House member Mehboob Baig in Anantnag. With this win, the PDP reclaimed its bastion South Kashmir where the party, despite winning the maximum number of Assembly seats in the 2008 elections, lost the Parliament seat to NC in 2009. “The winning margin of PDP in South Kashmir is directly reflecting the anti-incumbency factor against the NC- Congress coalition government. Though South Kashmir was always the PDP bastion, the big margin in the constituencies represented by coalition candidates have shown that the coalition has failed on the ground,’’ said Hamid Gani who hails from South Kashmir.
In North Kashmir as well, PDP candidate Muzuffar Hussain Baig won by a margin of 29,219 votes. Though NC was placed comfortably in the Baramulla seat, PDP fielded former deputy CM Muzzuffar Hussein Baig changing the political fortunes for the party. For NC, Sajjad Lone’s Peoples Conference and Independent candidate Engineer Rashid jointly bagged over one lakh votes and played spoilsport.
