SRINAGAR: Unlike Jammu where PM Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia campaigned for their candidates, the top leaders of the Congress and the BJP have skipped the poll campaign in militancy-hit Kashmir.

Even the poll campaign by the state leaders of the two parties in the Kashmir Valley has been dull.

Senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad is the lone big face campaigning in the Kashmir Valley.  

Barring Azad, none of the top Congress leaders have campaigned for State Congress chief Ghulam Ahmed Mir, who is contesting against PDP chief and former J&K Mehbooba Mufti from prestigious Anantnag seat or for Farooq Ahmad Mir, who is the candidate from Baramulla-Kupwara in north Kashmir. 

In Jammu, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had also campaigned for the party candidates. Jammu has two Lok Sabha seats and it was a direct contest between the Congress and the BJP.

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Other than Modi and Shah, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had also campaigned for the BJP candidates in Jammu.  BJP vice-president Avinash Rai Khanna is the only top BJP leader to have participated in poll campaign in the Valley.

For the BJP, Mohammad Maqbool War is contesting from Baramulla, Khalid Jehangir from Srinagar and Sofi Yousuf is in the fray from Anantnag Parliamentary constituencies.

“The Kashmir Valley’s narrative is different. It is not responding to BJP leaders despite the fact that we have done a lot of work which no other party has done,” BJP spokesman Arun Gupta said.

He said the party does not have base in the Valley despite putting in a lot of hard work.  

“We are hopeful of making a base in the Valley.”   

Also, the big leaders don’t have much time in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, the BJP spokesperson added.