Under the NC -Congress electoral understanding, three seats of the Kashmir Valley were allotted to NC while the Congress got two seats of the Jammu region. The lone Ladakh seat, became a bone of contention between the two parties. The NC and the Congress won three seats in the Valley and two in the Jammu region respectively. The Congress, however, lost Ladakh which was won by an NC rebel Ghulam Hassan Khan, who defeated his Congress rival P. Namgyal. But the day after the result came, Hassan returned to NC. Both NC President Farooq Abdullah and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah welcomed him back into the party claiming that the Congress high command was taken into confidence. However, Hassan later said that he had not joined NC but had only lent his support to the UPA government at the instance of the Abdullahs.

The Lok Sabha election outcome shows reversal of the divisive political trends and the voting percentages witnessed during the state Assembly polls held four months ago. The Assembly elections were held in the background of the two-month long Amarnath shrine board land agitation launched by the Jammu-based and Sangh Parivar-dominated Shri Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti. The agitation led to the Valley's divided separatists forging unity and launching a counter agitation. The state's communal and regional division created by the two agitations resulted in the BJP registering record victories in the Assembly elections and the PDP expanding its political base in the Valley and the Muslim-dominated areas of the Jammu region.

That these trends have witnessed A reversal in the Lok Sabha elections is indicated by the fact that both the BJP and the PDP failed to win any seat with. BJP's Leela Karan Sharma who was convener of the Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti, losing even in its stronghold of Nagrota in the Jammu region and PDP's candidate losing in its citadel, Anantnag in Kashmir earlier represented by PDP patron Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and party President Mehbooba Mufti.

What substantially contributed to the NC victory in the Valley were low voting percentages in most areas and high turnouts in the segments represented by NC or Congress MLAs. This is in sharp contrast to the high turnouts during the Assembly elections despite the separatists' poll boycott calls and militants' threats to those participating in the elections. However, after introspection in the wake of the Assembly polls outcome, the stunned separatists said that would not ask the people to boycott the Lok Sabha elections. But just before Lok Sabha polls, the Hurriyat Conference succumbed to the pressure of militants and issued a poll-boycott call. People's Conference leader Sajad Lone, however, defied the boycott call to seek election from Baramulla, the bastion of his assassinated father. He, however, lost securing the third position.

The obvious reason for the people flocking to the polling booths during the Assembly elections was that they were eager to have rulers who could solve their problems and make life less miserable by undertaking development of the state. Perhaps, they had less interest in the Lok Sabha poll which was about the Centre's governance. Was this a reflection of their anti-New Delhi sentiment? (IPA)