Political observers believe that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has withdrawn

support from the People�s Democratic Party (PDP) in Jammu and Kashmir keeping in
mind the upcoming assembly and parliamentary polls. But Kashmir is an old issue and
does not always yield the desired results. BJP�s own past performance is a case in
point.

The saffron party ended up winning 182 seats in the Lok Sabha elections in 1998 as
well as in 1999 � four months after the famous Kargil victory. Also, the euphoria
created after the September 2016 surgical strikes proved somewhat short-lived as
the November 8 demonetisation gradually cancelled out its political impact.

In the first instance, though the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
returned to power in 1999, it was the tally of the other NDA constituents across
the country that had increased. The result was in some way worrisome for the
saffron party, especially in the then undivided Uttar Pradesh. The party could win
only 29 seats in 1999 against the 58 (out of 85 then) it had won in the March 1998
parliamentary polls. This was in spite of the fact that the highest number of
soldiers who had lost their life hailed from this state � which then included the
Uttarakhand region. The contributions of army men from Garhwal and Kumaon in that
operation is well known.

The poor performance in UP pulled down the figure for the saffron party in 1999.

This raised a big question � why did the BJP fail in Uttar Pradesh when the Kargil
wave was sweeping the country? The Samajwadi Party then won 26 seats and Congress
ten, while in the March 1998 election the latter drew a blank. In fact, the BJP�s
decline started from that very election in 1999 to the point when it returned in a
big way to win 71 seats (plus two by its ally Apna Dal) in the 2014 Lok Sabha
election. In 1991 and 1996 elections, BJP won 51 and 52 Lok Sabha seats
respectively.

Is it that then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was himself an MP from
Lucknow, failed to take full advantage of the Kargil wave though many soldiers from
the state received several bravery awards, including the Param Vir Chakra?

The example of UP is very pertinent as the BJP tried to cash in on the Kargil
success in the Hindi heartland states. It may again try to encash the Kashmir
situation in the coming polls.

But what remains unanswered is how the Congress party�s tally jumped from zero to
ten in 1999, and that too when nationally the party was weakened by the split and
formation of the Nationalist Congress Party and joining of NDA by Trinamool
Congress in this intervening period of 18 months?

The answer to these questions can be found in the political developments that took
place in Uttar Pradesh in 1999. The BJP was then in power in the state and
incumbency factor played against chief minister Kalyan Singh. The relationship
between Vajpayee and the state chief minister wasn�t a cordial one.

Singh � whose first tenure as chief minister in 1992 saw the tearing down of Babri
Masjid � had to quit in November 1999, after just two years in office. He left the
BJP only to return some time later.

Similarly, the Modi magic did not work in Punjab in the assembly election held only
four months after the surgical strikes, even though the party performed well in
Uttar Pradesh. But experts attribute the BJP victory in UP in March 2017 largely to
the divided opposition and turmoil within the ruling Samajwadi Party and not to the
note ban or surgical strike.
Punjab neighbours Jammu and Kashmir and is itself a victim of cross-border
terrorism, yet the BJP-Akali Dal alliance failed to win here. The number of
soldiers from this state who sacrificed their lives for the country is also quite
high.

But the saffron party�s move has certainly landed some of its remaining allies in a
fix � for example, the JD(U) and Ram Vilas Paswan�s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). The
other NDA constituents � except Shiv Sena, which technically is still with it � are
too small to make any significant influence at an all-India level.

It is a well-known fact that when the then Samata Party, the earlier version of the
JD(U), had joined the NDA in 1996, it made amply clear that it differs with the BJP
on the issues of Article 370, Uniform Civil Code, Ram mandir etc. Today, the policy
of the Modi government on these issues is quite different.

It remains to be seen how the Bihar chief minister will react, as Mehbooba Mufti
was the only Muslim face within the NDA. After all, both JD(U) and LJP want to
appease Muslim voters.

Soroor Ahmed is a Patna-based freelance journalist.