Political observers say the decision is a tacit acknowledgement of the anger at the party over the decisions of August 5, 2019.
At an election rally in Jammu on April 16, Union Home Minister Amit Shah attempted to clear the air over Bharatiya Janata Party’s reluctance to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Kashmir Valley.
“The BJP is not in a hurry to see the lotus bloom in the Valley,” Shah said during a massive rally in Jammu’s Paloura area. “We are not going to conquer Kashmir as projected by our adversaries. We want to win every heart of Kashmir.”
It took three days to get more clarity on his statement. April 19 was the last day for filing nominations for the Anantnag-Rajouri parliamentary seat – the first among the three Lok Sabha seats that will vote on May 25. While a total of 25 candidates filed nominations for the seat, none of them was from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
These are the first major elections in Jammu and Kashmir, after the scrapping of its special status and statehood in August, 2019.
A day later, the BJP chief in Jammu and Kashmir, Ravinder Raina, said the party’s decision to avoid contesting elections on the three seats of Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley was to “achieve a big goal.”
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