The New Lay Of The Land In Kashmir

United we stand NC chief Farooq Abdullah, PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti and other leaders at a Gupkar meeting in Srinagar, Oct. 24

- Moazum Mohammad

On November 7, the People’s Alliance for Gupkar, a coming together of seven mainstream political parties in Jammu and Kashmir, announced that they would jointly contest the District Development Council (DDC) elections, scheduled from November 28. It’s an unprecedented decision by political parties often bitterly opposed to each other, now making common cause in an attempt to resist the Centre’s plan to script a political future for J&K that will further undermine their role in it.

The DDC elections come 15 months after the abrogation of Article 370 and the bifurcation of the state of J&K into two Union territories on August 5, 2019. The last elections held were the panchayat and urban body polls in 2018 which the National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)— the main politcal players in the erstwhile state—boycotted, effectively handing the BJP a walkover. This helped the BJP wrest control of the local governance system in the Valley, where it had never won any poll of significance. The Gupkar Alliance leaders want to make sure they don’t make the same mistake again. The 20 DDCs, each led by a chairperson (who may be vested with junior minister status), will have a five-year term and appear designed to curtail the powers of elected representatives of any future legislative assembly in J&K.

“The sudden announcement of the polls revealed their plans. They want to cut us off from the people but we won’t allow it,” says Gupkar alliance signatory and senior CPI(M) leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami. “Our agenda is the restoration of the constitutional position as existed on August 4, 2019, but that does not bar us from participating in an exercise in public interest.”