Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) National President J. P. Nadda gave a clarion call to the party leaders and workers in Jammu to get ready for polls and reach out to the people to secure 50 plus seats in the forthcoming Assembly elections, which are likely to be held before the expiry of the Supreme Court set deadline of September 30. This is what he was expected to say to boost the morale of the cadre that had something to cheer, but also faced a lot of despondency as they were unable to understand why the party left the Kashmir Valley for others to contest in Lok Sabha elections.
Nadda counted all the achievements of the Narendra Modi government before coming to the subject of the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, something that has been on the anvil on the national narrative but did not translate into reality till date.

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He did so to remind the BJP workers that there is so much to talk about the party’s contribution to the well-being of the Union Territory and its people, hence it should lead the campaign for its victory in the Assembly polls. It, in fact, was invocation of the party’s ideology toward J&K, which counted more for the integration of the territory into the national mainstream. The party, while choosing July 6 as the day to convey this message, attempted to recall its history of sacrifices, and giving up contest in the Lok Sabha polls in Kashmir was yet another sacrifice for a bigger goal – 50 plus seats in the Assembly polls.
In the political calculus, BJP in J&K should understand the real message delivered by its national president responsible for guiding the state of affairs of the party across the country.
He wanted the party to charge itself for the campaign and delivery at the end of the Assembly polls, which are as significant for the BJP as the national polls, which returned NDA to power for a third time with BJP in lead.
The idea was to tell the local party leadership that instead of responding to other parties’ call for elections; it should be in the forefront in demanding polls. It must be rooted in the original philosophy of the party for the complete integration of J&K with the idea of India in real sense. This goal is closely linked to 50-plus seats in the House of 90, as the saffron party is the only one that can demolish all the barriers and pave way for winning hearts and minds of the people, putting them on a platform of national thinking.
For this, J&K BJP has to take charge not only of its campaign but should also make other parties to compete in the nationalistic driven narrative. Either they join in the nationalistic narrative or lose the race. That demands that the party leadership in the Union Territory is in a commanding position. That is not a difficult task as the party has a readymade spring board of Prime Minister Modi’s work in the past ten years before and after the revocation of Article 370 in 2019. The work of integrating J&K, and its uplift started within days after he took over office in May 2014.
The BJP only needs to pick up the work done since and translate it what it means for the people, ranging from citizenship rights to the marginalized sections of West Pakistan Refugees, Valmikis, Gurkhas and others. Nation-wide schemes that have benefited millions of people in the country have also been given to lakhs of people in J&K without any discrimination on the basis of the religion, region or any other consideration.
This is the baseline on which the local unit should build its narration for the campaign, which has to be at the grassroots level. It requires corner meetings, polite knock on doors with a list of what has been done so far, and also to elicit wish list from the people.
The whole thing boils down to the UT leadership of the party. It must understand what did Nadda’s message “gear up for polls” underscored. He has given them a task, and it is for them to work on it ahead of the Assembly polls.