The elections to the Assembly of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), held in three phases between September 18 and October 1, 2024, and to the State Assembly of Haryana, held in a single phase, on October 5, have thrown up contrasting results, proving the exit polls wrong. The exit polls predicted that in J&K, there would be a hung verdict while the Congress would sweep Haryana. The National Conference and Congress alliance has won a clear majority in J&K, while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has retained Haryana for the third consecutive term. Though the result in J&K was somewhat on the expected lines, the result in Haryana was shocking. No one expected the BJP to win in Haryana and the Congress to lose. What explains these contrasting results?

There has been no election in J&K since 2014. The polls in J&K were held after a gap of ten years. During these years, the state has suffered immensely, even facing an existential crisis. No state of the Union of India had suffered so much as this predominately Muslim-majority border state. By keeping the Assembly in suspended animation, the state was brought under the Governor's rule in June 2018 and subsequently under the President's rule from December 2018. On August 5, 2019, the Government of India stripped the state of its autonomy and statehood by abrogating Article 370 of the Constitution that conferred special status on the state and downgraded the state by bifurcating it into two Union Territories – J&K with an elected assembly, and Ladakh without - the state turning into a police state with unprecedented clamp down on political leaders and dissenters, commutations and internet connections snapped and the army deployed everywhere. The state had the ignominy of losing its historical and religious-cultural identity.

The Centre undertook the contentious delimitation process in J&K in 2022, while the nationwide delimitation is due in 2026. The delimitation has resulted in increasing the J&K Assembly seats from 83 (excluding 4 of Ladakh) to 90 – raising the number of seats in Jammu from 37 to 43 and from 46 to 47 in Kashmir. This gerrymandering was undertaken to favour the Hindu majority in the Jammu region so the ruling BJP could derive electoral dividends. This has not gone well in the Valley.

It was the Supreme Court order last year that the Election in J&K should be held by September 30, 2024, that forced the Election Commission of India to hold the elections. Otherwise, the Centre would not have held the election. And with the Election Commission unwilling to exercise its constitutional mandate to conduct a free and fair election without a signal from the Centre, the latter could have preferred to postpone the election till such time the situation favoured the ruling dispensation.

The people of Kashmir were angry for depriving them of their statehood and the outsiders coming to the state, encroaching on their lands, setting up their own businesses and then employing people from outside the state, with unemployment reaching an all-time high. It was under this background the elections in J&K were held. The elections elicited an overwhelming response, not just from ordinary people but also from the separatists, who hitherto boycotted the polling and who showed up in droves to exercise their vote. They saw the elections as the last opportunity to restore their identity and honour and to end the draconian rule by the Lt. Governor. The LG's power has been enhanced recently vis-a-vis the elected government, making him a powerful agent of the Centre. The elected government became a lame-duck government, something similar to that of the Delhi administration.

The election result is a rejection of the Centre's Kashmir policy and all its actions following the J&K State Reorganisation Act 2019 and the dilution of Article 35A that preserved the unique identity of the state. The victory of the National Conference and the Congress alliance brought the two parties- the oldest mainstream party, the National Conference in J&K, and the grand old Indian National Congress - to form a coalition government to heal the wound and restore statehood at its first priority. People have reposed faith in them, and they are the parties with whom their destiny is intertwined. Recently, Farooq Abdulla said that it was due to the National Conference that J&K became a part of India in 1947, or else it would have lost to Pakistan.

The victory of the National Conference and Congress alliance reveals the polarisation in J&K - Muslims vs Hindus. The BJP remains essentially a party of Hindus in the Jammu region. It polled around 2% votes in Kashmir and secured zero seats out of 47 despite contesting 16 seats. The BJP propped up a large number of independent candidates as its proxies. They have lost their relevance. The Jammu and Kashmir regions are two different entities, each distrusting the other. The Modi government failed to resolve this. In terms of the larger polarisation, with Jammu voting for the BJP and Kashmir voting for the non-BJP parties, nothing has changed compared to the 2014 contest. Both the BJP and NC have performed their best ever and emerged as the largest parties in the Jammu and Kashmir regions, respectively.

If the J&K situation is back to square one today, who is responsible for all the traumatic experiences the people of the state had and the insult and humiliation they suffered! In fact, J&K was more harmonious in 2014 than it is today. Should the Moodi government not be held accountable for pursuing the ill-conceived policies and actions in the state during the past ten years, particularly the downgrading of the state, for political expediency to gain electorally? The terrorism has not come down. The security personnel and the civilians continued to be targeted and killed by the terrorists, whose base is now shifted to the Jammu region, not confined to the Valley.

The result in Haryana was shocking. No one expected the Congress to lose and the BJP to return, considering the factors such as the anti-incumbency, the ill-treatment and humiliation of farmers and women wrestlers, unprecedented unemployment among the youth who take to the 'junkie route' to smuggle into America in search of some means of livelihood; massive drug problem and misgovernance of last 10 years. Farmers' issues, wrestlers' protests, and Agnipath didn't matter to the voters, and it looked like the people voted against their own interests. The Congress had created a fantastic manifesto that sought to address Haryana's problems. Its Kisan-Jawan-Pahalwan poll pitch also didn't resonate on the ground.

At a Press Conference held while the counting of votes was in progress on October 8, the Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh complained: "the results in Haryana are unexpected, surprising and that we don't accept them because this is a defeat of democracy… very serious complaints on the process of counting, the functioning of EVMs in at least three districts. There are more that are coming in… If the verdict goes against the ground reality, it goes against what people in Haryana had made up their mind for…Under these circumstances, it is not possible for us to accept the results that have been announced. Serious questions have been raised by our candidates… We will bring them to the notice of the EC. What we have seen today in Haryana is a victory for manipulation, a victory for subverting the will of the people… The chapter on Haryana is not complete." He said at least 12 seats have been affected by EVMs malfunctioning. It could be more than this: "ECI is our first stop. We will seek time from them. Then, afterwards, whatever has to be done will be done." The Congress lost the election despite increasing its vote share by nearly 12% compared to 2019.

One factor that seems to have contributed to the victory of BJP is: Jat vs. non-Jat. The result shows that 48% of Jats and 38% non-Jats voted for the Congress, while 37.5 % Jats and 59% non-Jats voted for the BJP. The BJP succeeded in pitting the non-Jats against the Jats.

The Hindutva is still a constituency for the BJP. The Hindutva played a part in the BJP's Haryana win, and Jammu's Hindu vote went big for the BJP. In the post-Lok Sabha election, the notion that the Hindu vote, crafted in 2014 and 2019, was fracturing had gained currency. These results show the jury is still out.

If J&K voted against the BJP because of its divisive and communal agenda and insensitivity to the people's plight, Haryana voted back the BJP to power because of the consolidation of non-Jats against Jats, fearing the latter's domination. Thus, these two state elections reveal that religion and caste are still the dominant factors determining the electoral fortunes, even pushing the real issues to the back burner.