PDP suffers worst election result since its inception 25 years ago | Latest News India

The party, which formed its first government with the help of the Congress in 2002, just three years after it was formed by former Prime Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in 1999, has been facing a second consecutive electoral defeat since this summer. The PDP was ahead with just two seats while its arch-rival National Conference (NC) was ahead with 42 out of 90 seats. The NC-Congress alliance appeared poised to form the first government in J&K since it was stripped of its semi-autonomous status by the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in 2019 and divided into two Union Territories. It was leading with 52 seats while the BJP was ahead with 27 seats.

The loss of PDP chief and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter Iltija Mufti in her family bastion Bijbehara added insult to injury. This comes months after the PDP failed to win any seats in the national polls. The PDP received only 8.45% of the votes in the Lok Sabha elections. The NC won two of the three Lok Sabha seats in the Kashmir Valley with a vote share of 22.2%. Mehbooba Mufti lost the Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat by 181,000 votes.

In the 2024 general elections, the PDP also faced stiff competition from Jamaat-e-Islami-backed independent candidates in its stronghold of South Kashmir. The Jamaat-e-Islami, which was banned in 2019, was believed to have previously supported the PDP.

The PDP’s support base began to dwindle in 2016 when it attracted widespread attention over the killing of scores of civilians during protests following the shooting of Burhan Wani of the Hezbol Mujahideen. The killings fueled anger over the PDP’s alliance with the BJP.

The revocation of the region’s semi-autonomous status and statehood, the months-long lockdown, suspension of internet services and the detention of senior political leaders added to resentment in the Valley. The PDP was blamed partly because of its alliance with the BJP, even though their association ended a year earlier.

Mehbooba Mufti and the PDP were ironically blamed for the post-2016 atrocities, even though she gained popularity by leading protests against alleged high-handedness in counter-insurgency operations in the early 2000s.

Waheed-ur-Rehman Para, one of the two PDP candidates who could win their parliamentary seats, admitted that their alliance with the BJP was suicidal. “It was an alliance of two parallel lines. But his motive was not to form a government but to ease the pain of Kashmiris and start a dialogue between Delhi and Srinagar,” he said during the general election campaign.