On Abrogation of Article 370, and 35A

In the discussions on today's events there is one interesting statistic from the (erstwhile!) state of Jammu & Kashmir that is easily overlooked.

In Lok Sabha 2019 elections, Farooq Abdulla's National Conference bagged less than 8% of the votes of people of J&K. Mehbooba Mufti's PDP got less than 3% of the votes. BJP bagged whopping 46% of all the votes polled in the state. BJP's candidate from Jammu, Jugal Kishore alone bagged over 8.5 lakh votes, which is 3 times the total votes bagged by all National Conference candidates put together (~2.8 lakhs), and 7 times more than the votes bagged by all PDP candidates put together (~1.2 lakhs)! (Source: Election Commission of India's official website http://eciresults.nic.in).

In a democracy the best way to judge the mood of the people is through elections. And LS 2019 results from Jammu & Kashmir clearly show that the Muftis and the Abdullahs no longer represent the voice of the people of the state. With BJP, which had promised to revoke Article 370, winning close to half of the votes in the state, no one can argue that people of Jammu & Kashmir were opposed to abrogation of Article 370 & 35A.