As the counting for the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Election continues, trends suggest a National Conference-Congress government is likely to be formed, with leads on 47 seats (NC-41, INC-6) according to ECI data at 2 pm.

The Mehbooba Mufti-led People’s Democratic Party has failed to revive itself in the way it had hoped, with even Mehbooba's daughter Iltija trailing in Bijbehara, once the family bastion of the Muftis. In a social media post, Iltija accepted “the verdict of the people” and thanked PDP workers for working hard throughout the campaign.

The party, which ruled J&K in alliance with the BJP from 2015-2018, has faced a major setback, going from 28 seats in the 2014 Assembly elections to leading in just four constituencies as per the ECI trends at 2 pm. Mir Mohammad Fayaz from Kupwara, Rafiq Ahmad Naik from Tral, Waheed Ur Rehman Para from Pulwama, and Mohammad Sartaj Madni from Devsar are the PDP candidates in the lead.

Noor Ahmad Baba, a Political Science professor at Kashmir University, believes the PDP’s decline in popularity stems from their previous alliance with the BJP, which many people feel “facilitated the BJP's entry into politics in the state”.

“The mood in the valley has been against BJP and all they have done post 2019 (since abrogation of article 370)…in their minds people are clear, they don't want to ‘reward’ BJP for all that has been done. PDP has been losing since 2019, we saw in the parliamentary elections and this election is reinforcing that.”

The PDP leadership, including Mehbooba Mufti and Iltija Mufti, have on multiple occasions clarified that there is no possibility of the party realigning with the BJP. However, Baba notes that people remain apprehensive about placing their trust in the PDP, as their past actions “don’t just wash off”.

“People are not trusting PDP because of their recent history, because they aligned with BJP at a time when people in Kashmir had completely rejected giving space to BJP.”

Baba believes the electorate has grown “wiser” this time around. “They believed if there was a divided mandate in the valley, it would make it easier for BJP then to somehow…(assume power), so people have voted with clear understanding.”

Even parties which had been labelled as BJP’s proxies during the Lok Sabha election, such as Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Party and Sajjad Gani Lone's People’s Conference, steered clear of getting into any alliances with BJP this time around.

However, even their performance has been abysmal with JPC leading in only one seat and Apni Party in none.