Bijbehara- The defeat in 2019 Lok Sabha polls from her party’s south Kashmir stronghold — less than a year after heading a coalition government with the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir — had led to questions about PDP president Mehbooba Mufti’s political future, but five years down the line she is again on a campaign trail seeking election to the Parliament from the newly-carved out Anantnag-Rajouri constituency. While rival National Conference has focused on holding mega election rallies in the constituency, Mufti who rose to prominence in the mid-1990s by visiting victims of conflict in the deepest of militancy-infested areas of Kashmir has fallen back on old tactics. Her campaign so far has mainly been to hold road shows in rural areas of the constituency which had whole-heartedly supported the PDP till the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Hugging the women folk and exchanging pleasantries with the men at every stop in the roadshow, Mufti makes it a point to highlight the absence of support for her during the last election. “I know you did not vote against me in the last election, you stayed away, but this time it is not about bijli, sadak or paani. This time it is about our dignity, our identity and our resources which are under threat. If you want these issues to be raised in the highest forum of the country, you will have to support the PDP,” Mufti tells the people.
She learned the art of politics from her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, one of the most shrewd and astute politicians to have come out of Jammu and Kashmir. And it seems she wants to change an adverse situation to her advantage. The PDP president carries a bag of candies and toffees in her car and gives away to every child she sees at the stops over. Perhaps, it is an atonement for her. “Toffee, milk” remarks she made as the chief minister when defending the death of young children in security forces action during the 2016 summer agitation in the valley.
Mehbooba Mufti, who is part of the INDIA bloc but decided to contest the elections against the National Conference — a fellow member of the anti-BJP alliance — has been able to generate some sympathy among the electorate. “She is fighting a lonely battle. Every other candidate has support from one national party or the other but it is anybody’s game. Anyone can win as this constituency formed after delimitation is so unnatural,” Rafiq Ahmad, a resident of Panchpora village, told PTI.
Nazir Ahmad, a resident of Marhama village, takes the conspiracy theory a notch higher. Pulling out a smartphone, he shows a photograph of National Conference leader Omar Abdullah and BJP leader Ravindra Raina, taken at some public function, as proof that the two parties have a covert understanding on the Anantnag-Rajouri seat.
