Modi’s party loses in Kashmir, wins in another crucial state

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, secured a third consecutive victory in Haryana, a northern state, but fell short in the assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir, an insurgency-affected region bordering Pakistan.

Both the Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir assemblies have 90 seats, with any party or coalition crossing the halfway mark eligible to form a government.

In Jammu and Kashmir, an alliance formed by the Indian National Congress, the main opposition party at the federal level, and the regional powerhouse National Conference (NC) won 49 seats. Of those, the NC claimed 42 seats, while Congress secured 6. NC leader Omar Abdullah, who served as J&K’s Chief Minister from 2009 to 2014, is expected to lead the next regional government.

Notably, this was the first assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir in a decade and the first since Modi’s government abolished Article 370 of the Constitution in 2019, which had granted a certain level of autonomy to the region. Following this change, the state was downgraded to a union territory largely governed from New Delhi.

In an interview with RT correspondent Runjhun Sharma earlier this month, Omar Abdullah stated that one of the primary expectations of the people in Kashmir – and a major promise from the central government – is to restore the statehood that was “taken away.” He remarked, “People want an empowered government. A union territory government is not empowered.”

Voting in Kashmir occurred over three phases (September 18, 25, and October 1), while Haryana’s polls were held on October 5. In Haryana, an important agricultural state, exit polls had predicted a win for the opposition Congress party, which governed the state from 2005 to 2014. However, the BJP managed to regain power, winning 48 out of 90 total seats in Haryana’s assembly, while Congress captured 37.

This victory came just months after the BJP suffered electoral losses in the April-May general parliamentary elections, where it failed to secure a majority for the first time in a decade but still formed a government with the help of regional allies.

Congress condemned the Haryana assembly election results as “unacceptable.” Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh described the outcome as “totally unexpected, surprising, and counterintuitive,” claiming it contradicted realities on the ground. The party reported receiving complaints about irregularities in the vote counting process and plans to present this information to the Election Commission.

In response, the BJP dismissed the opposition’s allegations, stating that voters had rejected the “divisive” politics of Congress. Senior BJP leader and Indian Home Minister Amit Shah said “The people of Haryana completely rejected the negative and divisive politics of Congress, which divides people based on caste and region.”

As the vote counting concluded, Prime Minister Modi addressed party workers, expressing gratitude to voters from “every caste, every class,” and emphasized that his administration would “leave no stone unturned” to meet public expectations. In a sharp critique of the opposition, he linked the Congress party to “global conspiracies” aimed at weakening India.