But if you have your constituents with you, then it shouldn’t be a problem whether there are vote cutters and vote dividers.

I’m sure that when push comes to shove, ultimately none of this will work. But that doesn’t mean that we go silent about it now because people need to realise what is happening. One of the dangers we face as a result of a fractured mandate is the possibility that the Indian government will just continue to extend Governor’s rule.

Central rule will be maintained indefinitely and they’ll leave the Assembly in suspended animation. One of the risks that we face is the BJP forming a government. But the second risk we face is that the BJP will then impress upon the Union government to leave the Assembly suspended. All this would have been for nothing. So, the people of J&K need to realise that this election, perhaps more than the previous ones, is important. So, that they vote carefully while considering the fallout of their vote.

Concerning fractured mandates, what are the options if you are in a scenario where you have the most number of seats but you are not in a position to form a government?

At the moment we are concerned with offering the people with the best route to an elected government with the understanding that we have with the Congress. Therefore, it would be highly premature to contemplate the possibility that this alliance will not come to part with its own majority.

I just want to push this a bit further.

No, I know you’d want to but my answer won’t change. We are not looking at that possibility.

What is the main issue in this election?

 I don’t think there is any one main issue. There is the overwhelming issue of what was done to J&K on August 2019. There is the whole sort of humiliation that was heaped on us with the downgrading to a Union Territory status. But then, coupled with this, there are the day-to-day governance issues on which the administration, over the last 5-6 years, has failed miserably. So whether it is services like electricity, health, education, clean drinking water, unemployment, which has only grown worse, or the debt. Today, J&K’s GDP to debt ratio is 49 per cent. We are, along with Punjab, the most debt-ridden territory in this country and a lot of that has to do with this double-engine, so-called government that we’ve had in J&K for the past 10 years.

So, if you form the government, what would your first order of business be?

Well, of course, there is the legislative business, which I believe any incoming administration will have to initially battle, that includes restoration of statehood. Enough commitments have been made publicly, privately, in Parliament, and in the Supreme Court, about statehood being restored to J&K. So, I think the first thing any government should do is to demand the restoration of that, failing which, they should explore legal options.

Before this election, you said this Chief Minister would have no powers and that you don’t see yourself waiting outside his office for files to be cleared. So if you form the government and you are the chief ministerial face of this campaign…

Again, this is all very premature because none of these things are a factor until the results are out.

How do you foresee the equation between the Chief Minister and the elected government?

Obviously, any elected Chief Minister in the current scenario will find the going difficult. Even with States like Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, etc., opposition-ruled governments have found it very difficult to get their work done thanks to the BJP using the Raj Bhavan to scuttle their agenda. More often than not they end up approaching the Supreme Court to have pressure put on Raj Bhavan to make sure proposals are cleared.

With a Union Territory, things are going to be worse. That said, an elected government is still able to push back. The Governor will not have free rein as he has had for the last 5 or 6 years. There will be a certain amount of checks and balances that will automatically get built into the system which will come into play. But as I said, most importantly, the elected government, the incoming Chief Minister will have to fight for the restoration of statehood. And then, of course, the scenario changes.

Home Minister Amit Shah said, in a statement, that statehood has to be given by the government at the Centre.

It is not a gift to be bestowed upon us. They had no business taking it away from us in the first instance. And what are they trying to suggest? That the people of J&K have to beg, bow, and scrape before them before we get it. Let’s not forget that this election is hardly something they willingly conducted in J&K. It has been forced on them as a result of the observations of the Supreme Court, while the Article 370 issue was being adjudicated. Left to the Central government, these elections would not have been happening. This is why I previously mentioned that we now have Supreme Court’s records which state that the government committed itself to the restoration of statehood. So if they don’t do it willingly, we’ll ask the Supreme Court to remind them of their promise.

If the intention is to keep the BJP out, why is it that the Gupkar Alliance fell apart?

Well, it was never an electoral alliance, but the PDP needs to answer for the fact that they never supported the alliance in the parliamentary election. They put their own interest ahead of that of the people of J&K. When they were told, in no uncertain terms, it looked like five parliament seats, of which the National Conference already held three, the possibility of a seat-sharing arrangement for the Lok Sabha election was highly unlikely. But should the PDP work to support alliance candidates, we would have no hesitation in opening a dialogue with them for seat sharing in the Assembly election. But clearly that was something that was unacceptable to the PDP.

Their campaign is singularly focussed on the National Conference. It’s almost as if the BJP doesn’t exist. I guess in some ways they’re embarrassed by the fact that they were the ones who were responsible for bringing the BJP into the fold. Look, we always knew that the BJP was going to be the villains in J&K. The PDP didn’t need to bring them in and show them where all the treasure lay. But that’s what they did. They brought the BJP in and showed them the route to dismembering J&K. And that’s what the BJP did.

But the NC also allied with the BJP once…

Well, if you can’t see the difference between that NDA and this BJP, then there’s nothing in my answer that will convince you. If you can’t see the difference between [former Prime Minister Atal Bihari] Vajpayee sahib’ssort of dealings with J&K and Prime Minister Modi’s, then again nothing I say will convince you. Prime Minister Vajpayee’s approach to contentious issues like [Article] 370, like dialogue with Pakistan, like how to handle an internal dialogue, opening up the routes like the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road. These are all part of the record. And, I mean, compare that to how this current government and its muscular approach has been used to deal with Jammu and Kashmir.