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Farooq’s victory brings along new challenges

JAMMU: The National Conference’s elderly statesman Farooq Abdullah on Thursday romped home as he won the Lok Sabha elections for the fourth time since 1980 when he was first elected to Parliament unopposed This time his victory brings to him unprecedented challenges that he had not faced in the last over 40 years of his political career — to defend Kashmir’s distinct religious and political identity after having succeeded in stopping the BJP’s juggernaut beyond the Valley.

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Arun Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jammu, May 24

The National Conference’s elderly statesman Farooq Abdullah on Thursday romped home as he won the Lok Sabha elections for the fourth time since 1980 when he was first elected to Parliament unopposed This time his victory brings to him unprecedented challenges that he had not faced in the last over 40 years of his political career — to defend Kashmir’s distinct religious and political identity after having succeeded in stopping the BJP’s juggernaut beyond the Valley.

It will determine where he places Kashmir in the national narrative in Parliament where once again the Hindu nationalism has sent Narendra Modi as Prime Minister with an unassailable majority. The BJP had vowed to decimate all the special rights and privileges granted to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and Article 35A. The NC had promised to resist all this — how with just three members in Parliament Farooq can resist this would be watched keenly by Kashmir.

Kashmir was used by Modi from Pulwama to Balakot to garner votes to safeguard the country from the terrorists from within, and with a declaration that Pakistan has been made to cower in fear forever as much as its supporters in Kashmir. His hints didn’t need any decoding — that was a reference to the National Conference, as also to the PDP with which the BJP had ruled J&K for over three years (2015 and 2018).

With Mehbooba Mufti, PDP president, who became the mascot of the PDP-BJP alliance and then a bitter critic of it, having lost the election from her family and party’s erstwhile bastion in Anantnag in south Kashmir, now much will depend on how the NC’s tallest leader of the times acquits himself as a Kashmiri Muslim.

His victory was on expected lines as his rivals were no match for him in popularity and political experience. He also had an added advantage of dedicated party cadre — the National Conference that he heads is still rich with the workers loyal to the Abdullah family.

Farooq is better known as five-time Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir as he had led the party to victory in the four Assembly elections beginning 1983 — the other three being 1987,1996 and 2008. He could have formed the NC government in 2002, but the BJP, then led by Vajpayee, had persuaded him to give a chance to the alternative combination despite the NC being the single largest party with 28 seats, the same number that it had won in 2008 and formed the government in alliance with the Congress.

The NC stalwart’s entry into the Lok Sabha for the fourth time signals relevance of the NC in Kashmir politics as also the consequential role that Farooq himself has played as a parliamentarian (he also had one term in the Rajya Sabha from 2002 to 2008 at the national level where he is ranked among the leading lights having pan-India appeal).

It has been a long political journey for him from the times when he was elected unopposed from the Srinagar constituency in 1980 more as son of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah to 2019 when he had to deliver all by himself.

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