As soon as the Congress party held talks with the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) for the District Development Council (DDC) elections, the BJP has been continuously attacking the leaders of “Gupkar Gang”.
BJP organized two press conferences within a single day, after which Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s tweeted criticism of the opposition in the J&K. Almost every senior BJP leader, including Chief Ministers, are continuously attacking the leaders of National Conference (NC), People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Congress.
Gupkar alliance irritates BJP because of its demands of restoring back of Article 370 and statehood to the Jammu and Kashmir.
Top BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah had said the process of elections would complete the process of “normalisation” of the region.
Prime Minister Modi had said in his Independence Day speech this year that there will be elections in the region as soon as the delimitation process is over, so that J&K UT has its own government to continue the process of development.
Probably BJP calculated that if an election process takes place and a majority of people take part in it then it would signify that most people of the region approves the decision of revocation of special status.
The BJP does not enjoy any significant support in Kashmir. It was eyeing on the smaller parties and loose candidates from the state parties. BJP leaders said that the party is in touch with many candidates who filed nominations to contest the DDC elections. Many political analysts say that the party planned to convince these candidates, if they win, to join their party. Anti-defection law does not affect these elections because these elections are not contested on party symbols.
BJP had presumed that since the member parties of Gupkar alliance won’t contest elections as they were unhappy with the recent changes to the erstwhile state, they will sweep these elections. But the decision of the Gupkar alliance to to contest these elections has left BJP’s calculations useless.
The BJP’s continuous attack on the Congress could be inspired by their strategy of questioning the nationalist sentiments of the Congress which has worked pretty well in the past. Moreover, it could also be done to make Congress unsure about joining the alliance.
