Cross-Voting Shapes Outcome of Jammu and Kashmir Rajya Sabha Elections

Srinagar: In the crucial Rajya Sabha elections held on Friday in Jammu and Kashmir—the first since the 2019 bifurcation of the erstwhile state into Union Territories—cross-voting and reported intentional cancellation of votes played a pivotal role in determining the outcome, particularly for the contested fourth seat.

Intentional cancellation of a vote in a Rajya Sabha election refers to a deliberate act where an MLA invalidates his or her vote by not following the prescribed voting procedure which can happen in several ways, such as incorrect marking, showing the ballot, abstention or blank vote and defiance or strategic voting.

The ruling National Conference (NC) secured three of the four available seats, while the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) clinched the fourth, defying expectations of a clean sweep by the NC-led alliance due to evident cross-voting.

The NC’s victorious candidates are former ministers Choudhary Muhammad Ramzan and Sajad Hussain Kichloo, alongside party treasurer Gurwinder Singh Oberoi, alias Shammi Oberoi, a close aide to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, known for his administrative prowess.

For the fourth seat, the NC fielded its articulate spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar, banking on its coalition strength. However, Dar lost to BJP’s J&K unit president Sat Paul Sharma, who secured 32 votes against the BJP’s expected 28, indicating at least four cross-votes from the NC-led alliance.

These long-overdue biennial polls, announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in September, aimed to fill four vacant Upper House seats, unoccupied since February 2021 after the retirement of former members Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mir Mohammad Fayaz, Shamsher Singh, and Nazir Ahmed Laway.

Voting occurred at the Legislative Assembly complex here, with 86 of the 88 eligible MLAs (due to two vacancies in the 90-member Assembly) casting ballots at three polling booths from 9 am to 4 pm, followed by counting at 5 pm.

NC candidates Ramzan and Kichloo won unopposed, reflecting the NC-led alliance’s dominance, bolstered by support from Congress, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), CPI(M), and independents like Sheikh Khursheed. NC’s Oberoi secured 31 votes, comfortably winning with alliance support, including the PDP’s three MLAs, who publicly backed the NC candidate to counter the BJP. The contest for the fourth seat was intensely competitive, with the outcome uncertain until the final count. BJP’s Sharma won with 32 votes, while NC’s Dar managed only 22. The BJP’s tally exceeded its 28 MLAs, clearly indicating cross-voting from the NC-led alliance, which was expected to command 57-58 votes. Reports of “betrayal” within the alliance further underscored this breach of coalition discipline.

The NC-led alliance, comprising approximately 57-58 MLAs including NC’s 42, Congress’s 6, PDP’s 3, CPI(M)’s 1, and independents was poised to dominate all four seats based on vote arithmetic. Chief Minister Abdullah, the first to vote, confidently claimed a clean sweep, echoed by Congress MLA Nizamuddin Bhat, who insisted no cross-voting would occur. However, the results contradicted these assertions.

A significant pre-poll development was the PDP’s decision on Thursday to support the NC candidate for the third seat, announced by PDP president Mehbooba Mufti. Framing it as a move to bolster the “secular” alliance against “fascist forces,” Mufti clarified that the support was strategic, not an endorsement of NC’s governance.

The PDP’s three MLAs backed Oberoi for the third seat, following direct outreach from NC president Farooq Abdullah and Oberoi himself. However, Mufti withheld unconditional support for the fourth seat, conditioning it on NC’s backing for two PDP-proposed bills: the Land Rights and Regularisation Bill, 2025, and the Daily Wagers Regularisation Bill.

The NC-Congress alliance, despite its success in the 2024 Assembly elections, faced tensions over the fourth seat. Initially, the NC offered it to Congress as a coalition gesture, but Congress declined, citing concerns over vote arithmetic. The NC then fielded Dar, while the BJP strategically nominated Sharma for the fourth seat, supported by its disciplined 28 second-preference votes, and fielded notional candidates Dr. Ali Muhammad Mir and Rakesh Mahajan for the uncompetitive first and second seats.

The cross-voting in the fourth seat’s contest revealed cracks in the NC-led alliance’s unity, despite its numerical strength. The BJP’s ability to secure additional votes suggests either strategic defections or lapses in coalition discipline, undermining the NC’s claim of a unified front. Party leaders from both sides described the outcome as reflective of their respective strengths, with the NC consolidating its Rajya Sabha dominance with three seats and the BJP maintaining a significant presence with one.

The elections, conducted peacefully with one postal vote -that of jailed MLA Mehraj Malik- and one abstention -J&K People’s Conference leader Sajad Gani Lone-, underscored the high stakes of coalition politics in J&K’s 90-member Legislative Assembly, which served as the electoral college. The results highlight the fluidity of political loyalties and the critical role of cross-voting in shaping electoral outcomes, particularly in tightly contested races like the fourth seat.

Soon after the results were officially declared, Lone took to ‘X’ to describe the outcome as a “fixed match.” He said, “So BJP wins the fourth seat. As predicted, a fixed match. Axis of evil. NC and BJP. Thank God I abstained. Imagine what my plight would have been. Now mathematically proved. That it was a fixed match”. He asked, “Why did NC poll extra votes for candidate 3. They didn’t need to. They polled 31 votes for candidate 3. Only 29 votes would have sufficed. Even 28. Because BJP was fighting for seat 4. Who cross voted. Whose votes were rejected. And who was hand in glove”.