SAFFRON DREAMS IN PARADISE

If at least two of the three parties-the NC, the PDP and the Congress-are unable to stitch together an alliance, the BJP may get to implement its poll strategy in Kashmir 

- ZAFAR CHOUDHARY

Lok Sabha elections have never mattered much to the local politics of Jammu and Kashmir, which has usually revolved around separatism, Kashmir’s special constitutional status and its unique identity. With personalities taking primacy over democracy, parliamentary polls have mainly meant three things in the past: rehabilitating a loyalist, removing an irritant and grooming the children of the powerful.

For the first three Lok Sabhas, the candidates did not have to face any contest as the first direct elections took place only in 1967. Of the three prime ministers (till 1965, the head of government in J&K was known as prime minister) and seven chief ministers who have ruled J&K, eight have had a term in Parliament, with seven of them having at least one tenure in the Lok Sabha. Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, who succeeded their fathers as chief ministers, have enjoyed multiple Lok Sabha terms. One premier’s brother and another’s wife had two terms each. Maharaja Hari Singh’s son, Karan Singh, who had an 18-year-long stint as the constitutional head of state from 1949 to 1967, got four terms in Lok Sabha from Jammu’s Udhampur constituency.