Jammu vs Kashmir: Electoral politics deepens the divide (IANS Column: FairPoint)

It has been an ongoing debate for more than seven decades and it is about Kashmir's dominance in the erstwhile state of J&K with Jammu and Ladakh feeling neglected.

Three years ago, this was ended with the stripping away of the special status and freeing Ladakh, but the divide between the other two constituents of the erstwhile state has gone deeper. A stark manifestation of the divide is the difference in the political preferences and ideologies of the two regions.

It was in 2014 that Jammu overwhelmingly voted for the BJP for the first time in the erstwhile state's history. For the BJP, the chinks in the Kashmir-centred politics were deep enough to strike its roots in Jammu and today, eight years on, the party's growth has been tremendous.

What happened in 2014 was repeated in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. The BJP won two LS seats in Jammu and also improved its vote share in the sensitive border state from 34.40 per cent in 2014 to 46.4 per cent in 2019.

Making its political preference clear, Jammu struck back at what it perceived as Kashmir's dominance and discrimination by negating Farooq Abdullah's National Conference, the Congress and other Kashmir-based parties.

The difference between the two regions is too apparent. It is rooted in religion, ideology, language and culture. In power sharing, the Kashmiris had always dominated the erstwhile state's politics.

The National Conference since its inception has essentially represented the regional patriotism of Kashmir. Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's People's Democratic Party

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