Banned Jamaat-e-Islami and Engineer Rashid Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) – “strategic partners” who were expected to change voting power in the Valley – failed to make an impact in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections.
Their only success was in Langate in north Kashmir, where Rashid’s brother Sheikh Khurshid won by 1,602 votes against Irfan Panditpuri of the People’s Congress. Rashid has won Langate twice, in 2008 and 2014, as an independent. Of the 36 AIP candidates, 31 lost their deposits, nine of them got less than 1,000 votes.
The AIP’s showing is especially sad as it came less than four months after Rashid, in jail, won a landslide victory in the Lok Sabha elections from Baramulla – defeating NC leader and former chief minister Omar Abdullah and People’s Congress chief Sajad Lone. Rashid then secured a lead in 15 out of 18 constituencies in the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat. However, throughout his campaign in the Assembly elections, Rashid remained under the cloud of accusations from rival parties that he was released on interim bail and sent by the BJP to decide the NC-Congress and PDP votes.
The alliance with Jamaat did not help either. Of the 10 candidates supported by Jamaat-e-Islami, eight lost their deposits. The only candidate from Kulgam, Sayar Ahmad Reshi, who contested, got more than 25,000 votes and ended up losing to CPI(M) leader Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami by about 8,000 votes.
In Zainapora, Jamaat-backed Ajaz Ahmad Mir came second behind National Conference’s Showkat Ahmad Ganaie, losing by around 13,000 votes. Mir, a PDP defector, was supported by Jamaat after the party failed to reach a conclusion on its candidate.
The failure of those voted by the Jamaat is important for the future of the party, especially since a large section within was opposed to the idea of ​​participating in the elections and accused its eight-member council of taking decisions without consulting it.
In Sopore, a Jamaat bastion represented by Syed Ali Shah Geelani for three terms, party-backed leader Manzoor Ahmad Kaloo got only 406 votes. Sopore seat got more than 51,000 votes.
Of the five AIP candidates who managed not to lose their deposits, four of them are political jackets – Yasir Reshi, Nazir Ahmad Khan, Shanty Singh and Raja Waheed.
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