After Lok Sabha debacle in Valley, Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Party hits reboot, eyes Azad, Sajjad tie-up for Assembly polls
In the wake of its poor show in the recent Lok Sabha elections, the Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP) led by Altaf Bukhari, former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader and businessman, seems to be struggling for survival with the upcoming Assembly polls set to be possibly its last chance to stay relevant in J&K politics. Formed in 2020, the JKAP has all along been seen to be close to the BJP.
The JKAP dissolved its frontal organisations, including youth and women’s wings, last week, days after the party failed to secure a lead in any of the 36 Assembly segments falling under the two Lok Sabha seats – Srinagar and Anantnag-Rajouri – that it contested in the recent polls. The party emerged as the runner-up in nine of these Assembly segments.
“If any JKAP leader quits, it must be seen as a leader and not a senior functionary of the party leaving. To ensure no one can claim to have a party position while quitting it, the frontal organisations have been dissolved,” a party insider said.
Another JKAP source said the party was in the process of “revamping its structure and image”. “There are voices within the party which say the BJP tag did not help and that it should be seen as neutral. We are expecting some changes before the Assembly polls,” the source added.
While upholding the Centre’s August 2019 decision to abrogate Article 370, the Supreme Court, in its verdict in December last year, had set a September 2024 deadline to hold Assembly polls in J&K.
The JKAP was founded by Bukhari in March 2020 after he fell out with the PDP leadership in 2019. His critics claim that the BJP “backed” Bukhari as a large number of dissident leaders from different parties, especially the PDP, rallied behind him.
With PDP founding member Ghulam Hassan Mir in his corner, Bukhari received the support of many of his former party colleagues even as the PDP accused the Centre of allegedly “pressuring” its leaders to desert its chief Mehbooba Mufti.
While the tag of being a “BJP proxy” helped the JKAP attract leaders, it did not seem to go down well with the people. The party performed poorly in the 2020 District Development Council (DDC) polls, winning only 12 of the 280 seats.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the JKAP got a slew of senior leaders in its fold, including several legislators and ministers.
Bukhari’s real test was the Lok Sabha polls, whose outcome proved to be disappointing for the party despite its perceived “alignment” with the BJP.
In these polls both of its candidates – Mohammad Ashraf Mir (Srinagar seat) and Zafar Iqbal Manhas (Anantnag-Rajouri seat) – forfeited their deposits.
Despite a massive push by the BJP, especially in the Pahari belt of Pir Panjal, Mohammad Ashraf Mir – a former PDP MLA and minister from Sonawar, who had defeated National Conference (NC) leader and ex-CM Omar Abdullah in 2014 – could not secure a lead even from his home constituency.
Moreover, alarm bells have started ringing in the JKAP amid reports that the BJP would rethink over extending its support to the party following its drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls. Many of its leaders have also started looking at other options. “The dissolution of some party structures should be seen in this context,” party sources said.
Bukhari’s own rise in politics too has been dramatic. A businessman, who runs the FIL Industries – a consortium of companies that deal with pesticides, horticulture and fruit juices – formally joined politics months ahead of the 2014 Assembly polls by joining the PDP, which fielded him as a candidate from the Amirakadal Assembly seat, where he defeated Nasir Aslam Wani, the provincial president of the NC.
As the Assembly results threw up a hung verdict, first-time MLA Bukhari was made the PWD minister in the then PDP-BJP government led by PDP supremo late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
Following Sayeed’s death in January 2016, when his daughter Mehbooba showed reluctance to lead the coalition government, Bukhari was said to have rushed to Delhi to meet the BJP leadership to offer to lead the coalition.
Bukhari was dropped from the J&K Cabinet after Mehbooba took over as the CM in April 2016, only to be re-inducted a year later as the education minister. Two years later, he was also given charge of the finance ministry after then finance minister Haseeb Drabu was sacked for his “Kashmir is not a political issue” remark.
Bukhari’s big moment came after the BJP walked out of the coalition in the aftermath of the Kathua rape incident following which he was projected as the CM face of the PDP-NC-Congress alliance, which he was seen to be instrumental in getting stitched. However, then Governor Satya Pal Malik dissolved the Assembly subsequently.
As his relations with Mehbooba continued to sour, Bukhari was expelled from the PDP in January 2019 for allegedly “inspiring and leading dissent which seriously damaged PDP’s efforts to implement the agenda of the alliance”.
Following the scrapping of Article 370, Bukhari was the first mainstream leader from J&K to maintain close ties with the Centre as he attended a meeting with diplomats even as several other leaders of the erstwhile state were behind bars.
There is also a possibility that despite their poor performances in the Lok Sabha polls, the three smaller parties in the Valley seen to be “BJP proxies” – the JKAP, Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) and Sajjad Lone’s Peoples Conference – may join hands for the Assembly elections.
The JKAP would bank on this alliance in a bid to remain afloat.
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