The BJP has dominated Indian politics for more than a decade. It has transformed its electoral presence in several regions where it once had little organisational strength. Yet Kashmir remains strikingly different.
In the 2024 J&K Assembly elections, the BJP won 29 of the 90 seats, but every one of those victories came from Jammu. In Kashmir, it contested only 19 of the Valley’s 47 constituencies and failed to win any.
That does not mean Kashmiris form one political bloc, nor can election results alone measure “trust”. But they certainly raise a question: after years in power at the Centre, could the BJP have approached Kashmir differently?
Here are five things worth examining.
- It Could Have Built Leaders, Not Just an Organisation
Political parties ultimately acquire faces.
National Conference has the Abdullahs. PDP has the Muftis. Smaller parties also have identifiable Valley-based leadership.
Who is the BJP’s unmistakable Kashmiri political face? Most, if not all, faces that are seen wearing BJP gamchas are not the ones all, if not most, Kashmiris identify with.
The problem becomes particularly interesting because some long-serving BJP workers in Kashmir complained before the 2024 election that they were being overlooked while newcomers received preference.
A party cannot develop deep roots if its own workers wonder whether there is a political future for them.
- It Could Have Contested Kashmir More Seriously
Nothing communicates political confidence better than asking people directly for their vote.
Yet BJP did not contest any of Kashmir’s three Lok Sabha constituencies in 2024. In the subsequent Assembly election, it contested only 19 of the Valley’s 47 seats.
Winning need not have been the immediate objective.
Even losing elections builds cadres, identifies booth-level workers, generates voter data and familiarises people with candidates.
Sometimes political presence has to precede political victory.
- It Could Have Separated Governance from Politics
Roads, tunnels, electricity, investment, tourism and infrastructure matter enormously.
But development and political acceptance are not synonyms. When it comes to frenzy – political, religious, or pure emotional – Kashmiris don’t give a damn about a bridge or a road that carries them home. Strange as it may seem, but that is how Kashmiris have been and are.
A government can build infrastructure from Delhi. A political party must build relationships on the ground. Most Kashmiris say BJP’s ground action is minimal, if not missing.
Interestingly, the BJP held its first-ever state office-bearers’ organisational meeting in Srinagar only in August 2026, where party leaders themselves stressed greater grassroots contact and more stays by senior leaders in different areas.
That raises the obvious question: why did such sustained political engagement not begin much earlier? And why shouldn’t it be frequent – so frequent that it obscures the presence and noise created by other parties and people.
- It Could Have Walked with Kashmiris Instead of Merely Talking to Them
Since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, BJP’s public communication has frequently emphasised what changed afterwards – development, peace, tourism, investment, Tiranga rallies and integration. If Kashmiris were ever happy, it was when all mainstream leaders were put under house arrest at the time of abrogation. Looks like BJP then, and in subsequent years, failed to read that sentiment. In fact, say certain politically learned souls in Kashmir, BJP had a bandwagon ready for it to take ride with.
There is nothing wrong with communicating achievements. But politics cannot survive on high-sounding declarations alone.
What Kashmir needed from BJP was a cadre visible not merely at party meetings, press conferences and official functions, but in villages, mohallas, markets and homes.
A district president should ideally be known because he got somebody’s electricity restored, helped a poor family negotiate a government office, took up a road problem, accompanied an unemployed youngster to the appropriate department or simply sat with people long enough to understand their frustration.
Where local functionaries are perceived as being more interested in designation, access, photographs or proximity to power than solving people’s everyday problems, a ruling party pays a political price.
Interestingly, BJP’s own recent organisational meetings have stressed strengthening grassroots contact, while its public-grievance programmes elsewhere in J&K demonstrate that such a model is possible.
Kashmir does not merely need BJP leaders who can explain Delhi to Kashmir. BJP needs workers who can explain Kashmir to Delhi. That difference is enormous.
- It Could Have Listened More Than It Spoke
Perhaps this is the biggest communication lesson.
Kashmir has received countless speeches explaining what Delhi has done for Kashmir.
But politics also requires the reverse conversation: What does Kashmir want Delhi to hear?
That does not mean accepting every political demand. Listening and agreeing are entirely different things.
It means BJP leaders spending sustained time with traders, students, farmers, tourism operators, women, displaced Kashmiri Pandits, village representatives, young entrepreneurs and ordinary families – not merely during elections or crises.
The Bitter Truth
BJP’s difficulty in Kashmir may not simply be an ideological problem. It may also be an organisational and political-engagement problem.
The party demonstrated that it could become electorally dominant in Jammu. Kashmir presents a different challenge.
And perhaps the lesson is remarkably simple: You can administer a region from a capital. You can develop it through government programmes. But political trust can only be built among people, one conversation at a time. Right now, that soulful conversation is missing.
