Hurriyat fades, while Rashid's rise unsettles parties in Kashmir

The Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir are witnessing two significant changes from earlier elections.

- BADAR BASHIR

First is the irrelevance of the Hurriyat in the electoral process, while the second one is the rise of Engineer Rashid, whose release from jail on bail has unsettled all electoral equations in the Kashmir region.

For the first time in decades, the elections are happening without the intervention of Huriyat Conference, whose main work was to stop people from voting and from contesting the elections, which eventually resulted in a lower voter turnout in the former state.

A political observer said, "Kashmir always witnessed the lowest voter turnout in the country, but not Jammu, where the Hurriyat did not have much impact. The people in the Valley subscribed to the narrative of Hurriyat who would tell them not to vote. The majority of people would follow them. There was Syed Ali Shah Geelani who was seen as the leader of the Hurriyat Conference.

He passed away. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq too would play an equally firm role, but he seems to have gone silent this time. Because of the leadership crisis Hurriyat is fading away."

Also, Jamaat e Islami Jammu & Kashmir (JeIJK), which was a part of the Hurriyat Conference and favoured boycotting elections, is now contesting the elections. Moreover, local mainstream politicians who participated in elections earlier were belittled by the Hurriyat. The politicians time and again expressed that the elections had no bearing on the Kashmir issue. The people couldn't vote because of the Hurriyat boycott call and threat of violence by insurgents. So those who won the elections won by getting a small percentage of votes.