The BJP’s impossible task in Kashmir Valley
The party’s acceptability has grown in the last decade, but its ambitions of forming a government will run into the widespread anger against it, said observers.
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Sofi Yousuf stood before a gathering of workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party in early September and reeled off a list of promises.
The BJP candidate for the Srigufwara-Bijbehara constituency in South Kashmir in the coming Assembly elections, Yousuf had even drafted a bespoke manifesto for his voters.
It promised new water filtration plants in the area, better roads, allotment of timber so that the poor can build homes, ensuring regular supply of ration and cooking gas; a park and a playground. It made no mention of Article 370 or statehood – both of which were cancelled by the BJP government at the Centre in August, 2019.
“I want to give pen, Quran and computers to the youth of Kashmir… unlike our local regional party leaders who had handed them only guns and stones,” Yousuf thundered during the meeting in Srigufwara in Anantnag district, drawing an applause from the 100-odd party workers in the crowd.
Yousuf also spoke about the plight of Kashmiri youth in prisons in mainland India. “Thousands of youths from this area are behind bars. I promise the people of Bijbehara whose kin are in jails that Sofi Yousuf will get them released,” he said.
He then moved on to tackle more difficult subjects, including Kashmir's aversion...
