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While governance challenges await Omar Abdullah’s government in 2025, the security grid is also wary that the stone-pelting, torture, violence of pre-2019 does not return.
Omar Abdullah, who suffered a shock defeat in the Lok Sabha elections to Engineer Rashid, won both the seats in the assembly elections.(Photo: PTI/File)
On October 8, 2024, Jammu and Kashmir opened another page in its political history. The union territory of Jammu and Kashmir elected its first government and Omar Abdullah returned to the Chief Minister’s seat, but with greatly reduced powers. The National Congress-led coalition managed to win 49 out of 90 seats in the devolution conference, 42 of which went to the NC. Omar Abdullah, who suffered a shock defeat in the Lok Sabha elections to Engineer Rashid, won both his seats in the assembly elections.
But the Jammu and Kashmir assembly election 2024 is a huge success for the National Congress as is the Election Commission, the security grid and the Centre.
The Narendra Modi government on August 5, 2019, had stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and nationality. Ladakh was bifurcated from the erstwhile state. The Supreme Court set a deadline of September 30, 2024, for the J&K elections. It was highly doubtful that the Jammuites and Kashmiris would witness free and fair elections. The idea of ​​the 1987 elections, which led to the birth of Hizbul Mujahideen and Syed Salahudin, was still lingering in the minds of adults. Therefore, it is no mean feat that the three-phase elections in J&K went off without any incident of winning by a bullet.
Record the breaking numbers
If the assembly elections are always the talk of the town in Jammu and Kashmir in 2024, the Lok Sabha elections held in May set the tone for the democratic process in the state turned UT. Five seats in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) made history on May 27, 2024, with 58.46% votes. According to the ECI, this was the highest turnout in the last 35 years.
Baramullah, once a hotbed of terrorism, emerged victorious in the Lok Sabha elections with 59% votes. Sopore, the home constituency of former Hurriyat Chief Syed Ali Shah Geelani in Baramullah had seen a voter turnout of 4 percent in 2019. By 2024, the figure, according to J&K’s chief electoral officer, stood at 44 percent.
The trend of voter enthusiasm continued in the polling sessions. About 63.5 percent of voters turned out for the three-phase assembly elections. The third and final phase saw the highest voter turnout of 68.72 percent. The first two phases saw 61.38 percent and 57.31 percent respectively. Other districts like Kishtwar, which witnessed terrorist incidents hours before polling, saw 80 percent voting.
Jamaat-e-Islami, the separatists, all voted for democracy
The year 2024 was also important for the democratic process in Kashmir, because separatists, ex-terrorists and families of suspected terrorists, are all ready to vote or be voted out. The banned Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) threw its hat in the fray in at least 10 seats in the Kashmir valley. Jamaat-backed candidates lost their deposits in most of these seats including the influential Shopian, Kulgam, Pulwama, Sopore. Their attack on democracy was criticized by anti-BJP groups as the Center trying to disrupt the due process of elections in the village. But the election results are now being touted by the central institutions to argue that Jamaat’s decision to contest must be seen as revolutionary and dispel conspiracy theories. Jamaat had last contested elections in 1987 and won four seats. Since then, it has openly called for a boycott of the elections. After the Pulwama attack in 2019, which killed 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) men, the MHA banned Jamaat-e-Islami under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
Engineer Rashid
If JeI was the talk of the town in October, in May, it was Engineer Rashid. Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Engineer Rashid, has been in prison since 2019 in a terror funding case. He created a flutter by defeating Omar Abdullah from the Baramullah seat in the Lok Sabha polls. The Awami Ittehad Party MP was released from Tihar jail before voting but failed to repeat the Lok Sabha performance. Out of 36 seats contested by AIP, it won only one – Langate.
Shadow of Fear
But while the election gave J&K viewers a big reason to rejoice, a shadow of dread lingered in 2024 when Pakistan-backed terrorists regained their old footing in the Jammu division. According to the central agency’s data, about 70 terrorists were killed until mid-December this year and 44 of these were foreign terrorists. The number is compared to last two years but what worries the security grid is the return of fear in Reasi, Doda, Kishtwar, Udhampur in Jammu division in 2024. As Modi 3.0 vowed, seven pilgrims were shot dead in Reasi on June 9, 2024. The bus carrying them was returning from Shi Khouri pilgrimage site. Three village guards were killed in Udhampur and Kishtwar. 18 security guards were also martyred in this area.
The return of terror in these areas, which have seen relative peace in the last 10 years, is a new challenge for the security grid in 2025. Redeployment of troops in Jammu region, infiltration checks, attacks on ground personnel are the measures that have contributed. it has been started. But infiltration by tunnels and drones continues to be a challenge at international borders.
Go Forward
While governance challenges await Abdullah’s government in 2025, the security grid is also wary that the stone-throwing, violence, violence of pre-2019 does not return. Union Home Minister Amit Shah in his last review of 2024 called for continued inter-agency coordination to implement the counter-terrorism and territorial governance programme. Omar Abdullah is looking to provide solutions to management issues like better power supply, addressing general category reservation issues etc. But the elephant in the room is Statehood. Although the Center has reiterated its commitment, the UT assembly passed the resolution. But the big question in 2025 is how soon will Jammu and Kashmir return to the nation and what will it entail?
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