The election in Valley will be pathbreaking for the BJP

After landslide victories in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections, the BJP is hoping to crest the tide in Jammu and Kashmir, confident of both Hindu and Muslim votes

On August 15, the Srinagar office of the Bharatiya Janata Party celebrated Independence Day. The national flag was hoisted with all solemnity. The ceremony was somewhat marred by the fact that it had been hoisted upside down. Someone noticed this and it was quickly brought down and re-hoisted. A mistake was made and it was discovered in time. That should tell us something

BJP leaders claim their office in Srinagar, deserted until a month ago but for two to three office assistants, is buzzing with activity today. "The number of people keen to contest elections in the Valley on a BJP ticket has surprised us. We have received dozens of applications for each seat," says a middle-rung BJP leader.This is nothing short of incredible. The Jammu

region has an active BJP set-up - many would say too active, because till recently, the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh units were at each other's throat. In comparison to this, the BJP in the Valley hardly had a presence.

But now, the BJP is not only counting on the Hindus of Jammu, but it is also wooing Muslims in the Valley. There were 11 Muslim candidates in the party's first list of 45. In the 2008 assembly elections, the BJP won 11 assembly seats riding on the Amarnath land row. That was its best ever performance in an assembly election.

It improved its show in this year's Lok Sabha elections, when it registered higher votes in 24 of the 37 assembly segments in the two parliamentary constituencies of Udhampur-Doda and Jammu-Poonch. It secured three of the six seats in the state -- winning both the seats in Jammu and the lone seat in the Ladakh region.

The party also led with a vote share of 32.65 per cent.

This time, it is setting its sights higher. The BJP believes it will have achieved a breakthrough if it can open its account by winning a seat in the Valley. Astonishing as it may sound, it is eyeing the Srinagar seat.

How and why?

Ram Madhav, partyman in charge of Jammu and Kashmir, has spent weeks in the state in recent months. Madhav, an old hand on Kashmir, was instrumental in Kashmiri leader Sajjad Lone meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week. He has also said the prime minister's doors were open to all separatists willing to join the national mainstream.

Madhav is confident that the BJP will do well, not just in Jammu and Ladakh but also in at least half a dozen seats in the KashmirValley. BJP has focused on seats like Amira Kadal and Habbakadal in Srinagar, Sopore in Baramulla, and Anantnag and Tral in southern Kashmir.\

The party has been asking nearly 60,000 Kashmiri Pandits who stay in Delhi, Noida and Ghaziabad and who had moved out of Kashmir before the cut-off date of November 1990, to enroll as voters for the assembly elections.

The Election Commission is likely to set up polling booths in Delhi and its vicinity to enable these Kashmiri Pandits to exercise their franchise. The BJP's assessment is that the usual poll boycott call by separatists would reduce the voter turnout to 10-12 per cent, and that is where Kashmiri Pandit votes could be crucial.

If Kashmiri Pandits, even those who are not residing in Kashmir, vote in large numbers, in an overall low turnout, a miraculous victory for the BJP candidate would prove a point.

BJP also hopes to gain from the work done by RSS's Sewa Bharti unit in Kashmir during the recent floods. Modi visited the Valley twice during the floods. No longer is the focus on Article 370. Now it is all about sharing the good governance dividend.

The seeds of the BJP's emergence in the Valley were sown when Modi addressed the 'Lalkaar' rally in Jammu in 2013. Parsing and analysing the speech he made, academic Rekha Chowdhary says in an article: "Insaaniyat (humanity), jamhooriyat (democracy) and Kashmiriyat (Kashmiri-ness) were cited by Modi in his Lalkaar rally speech. It was harking back to Atal Bihari Vajpayee's prescription for Kashmir, especially after BJP had virtually disowned the peace process initiated by Vajpayee."

The party has already committed itself to giving union territory status to Ladakh in "six months", according to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. While this might be unrealistic, it is clear that the party is leaving no stone unturned to establish a presence in the Valley.

On Article 370, it will be interesting to see how the BJP reconciles internal contradictions. But there is no doubt that there is unprecedented interest, eagerness and curiosity about BJP in a part of the world that was almost dogmatic in opposing it. For the BJP, this will be a pathbreaking election.