After granting ST status to the Pahari ethnic tribe, the BJP got only one seat from Rajouri-Poonch region; Fake narrative in action
POONCH TODAY NEWS
POONCH: Before the announcement of assembly elections in the UT of J&K, the BJP tried its best to strike a balance between people of Pahari ethnic tribe and Gujjar tribe because the top BJP leadership was expecting poor support for BJP candidates from the Gujjar voters on the issue of granting ST status to Pahari ethnic tribe.
Behind the curtains, every effort was made by the BJP to perform well in the sensitive Rajouri-Poonch region, and the party set a target of winning more than five seats, but the election results surprised all as the saffron brigade lost all the seats barring the Sunderbani-Kalakote seat, which the BJP has won as its candidate Randhir Singh took 35,010 votes. Even the J&K BJP Chief Ravinder Raina, who is considered a tall BJP leader, played a big role on the Pahari issue but lost his Nowshera seat to National Conference candidate Surinder Choudhary by 7,819 votes. Surinder Choudhary got 35,069 votes, while Raina got 27,250 votes. Many high-profile BJP leaders visited the Rajouri Poonch region to campaign in support of the BJP candidates, but their strong presence failed to ensure wins for the BJP candidates. A massive debate has been started on social media platforms in which people were seen targeting Pahari people on account of their disloyalty with the BJP, which has fulfilled their decades-old demand of granting ST status and political reservation. Political pundits were expecting a good show of the BJP in the Poonch-Rajouri belt, but the October 8 results gave a massive surprise to the BJP leaders, who were seen raising their eyebrows on the Pahari people, but on the other hand, the BJP stood in second place and getting a huge chunk of votes, and this factor needs not to be overlooked by the BJP top brass. This is for the first time that the BJP has taken so many votes from the eight seats of Rajouri-Poonch; however, the party failed to convert this into winning. From Poonch Haveli constituency, the BJP got 20,928 votes, 23,773 votes from Surankote, and 17,270 votes from Mendhar constituency. The party stood in second position in the Poonch district. The BJP got 26,466 votes and stood second in Thanamandi constituency, while in the Rajouri seat, the party got 27,519 votes. The BJP got 23,135 votes from the Budhal constituency and stood in second place. Political pundits believe that the top BJP leaders failed to impress upon the Pahari people to a large extent in remote pockets of the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri; as a result, the NC, Congress, PDP, and some independent candidates took advantage of this loophole of the BJP and managed to influence people to their sides. Although the BJP remained in the second spot in the Poonch-Rajouri region, its inability to perform well by winning maximum seats as earlier expected has forced the BJP top brass to question the Paharis because it was a question of credibility for the Paharis. The other day, BJP candidate from Rajouri, Vibodh Gupta, said that NC Played communal card in the region; as a result, the BJP couldn’t get Pahari votes in the maximum numbers that were badly required to win the seats. Before the grant of ST status, Paharis promised the BJP to give them the ST status, and in return, they would gift the BJP with maximum seats irrespective of any BJP candidate, but the average performance of Paharis surprised the top brass of the BJP as many media platforms in Jammu questioned the trustworthiness of Paharis. A leading media platform of Jammu, in its discussion, said that the BJP government gave everything to the people of Poonch and Rajouri, including ST status to Paharis and political reservation to Gujjars, but neither Gujjars nor Paharis proved their full loyalty for the BJP as the saffron brigade, which was expecting to win five to six seats, performed inadequately in the border region and managed to win only one seat. Sources close to “POONCH TODAY” in the BJP setup said that the election process is over and the new government has taken oath; this issue is likely to come up for discussion before the UT and national-level BJP leaders who took the first step and granted ST status to the Pahari ethnic tribe but in return got only one seat from the Rajouri-Poonch region. “POONCH TODAY” became the first media platform that published twice that despite getting ST status, a hefty chunk of Pahari people will not vote for the BJP or BJP-sponsored candidates with the title “Vote nahi milne, chahe kuch kar loo (June 2023) / Vote phir nahi milne (July 2024),” and the same prediction came true, both in the parliamentary and assembly elections. Now, some Pahari leaders who have been exposed from all angles and cannot make direct eye contact with the top BJP brass on this issue have started running a fake narrative that Gujjar and minority voters did not vote for the BJP but only Pahari voters gave their vote to some extent. It’s high time for the BJP leadership to analyze the reasons for this distrust, shown to some extent by the Pahari/Gujjar voters to the BJP leadership despite getting everything from the ruling party.