Ram Madhav back as BJP in charge of J&K polls, six years after fall of BJP-PDP government

Former BJP general secretary Ram Madhav appointed as election in charge for Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls.

BJP on Tuesday (August 20, 2024) appointed former party general secretary Ram Madhav as election in charge for the upcoming Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir, a return to the State for him as he had handled the State in the past on behalf of the BJP and was instrumental in the BJP forming a coalition government there in 2015 along with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

The appointment was announced late on Tuesday (August 20, 2024) evening and Mr Madhav will be sharing the responsibility with Union Minister G Kishen Reddy. Sources in the BJP told The Hindu that the appointment was discussed and approved “at the highest levels of the party”.

The BJP, which did not field candidates in the Kashmir Valley in the Lok Sabha polls will be doing so in the Assembly polls, but more than that, Mr Madhav’s appointment is a pointer to his relationships across the political aisle in Jammu and Kashmir. As one of the architects of the BJP-PDP alliance, which later broke off in some bitterness, his skills and connections will be required in any kind of post poll scenario that the mandate for the Assembly throws up.

The BJP’s catchment area for votes is mostly seen to be Hindu dominated Jammu area, which has roughly 43 seats with the Valley with 47 seats, in the 90 member Assembly under the new delimitation exercise. Senior leaders of the BJP have been emphasizing that the party is not looking for any tie ups with other parties, but party sources say, that “even if the BJP wins all seats in Jammu, it still has to speak across the aisle in any situation of forming the government.”

In 2015, the BJP got 25 seats, and the PDP won 28 seats in a House with 87 members. The alliance between the two parties came to power in March 2015, more than two months after the results for the Assembly were announced in December 2014, with a common minimum programme and with late PDP leader Mufti Mohammad Sayed at the helm.