With bail stirring suspicion, all eyes on Engineer's impact

SRINAGAR/ANANTNAG: This election, Kashmir is an alphabet soup, and adding to the traditional PDP/NC binary are AIP, AP, JEI, DPAP. The ubiquitous chatter in the middle of this muddle is the conspiracy theory about the "invisible hand of Delhi". And at the centre of these intrigues sits Engineer Rashid of Awami Ittehad Party .

Jailed for over five years from where he won the 2024 Lok Sabha election but bailed out just in the nick of time to campaign for assembly polls , Rashid is a maverick who has roiled Kashmir politics like few have in the past. To his backers, he is the man who did not bend to Modi's will, but to others that includes the Abdullahs and the Muftis, he is the proxy sent by BJP to damage the Kashmiri regional parties and scramble the board. Kashmir is wracking its brain over who is Engineer and what he will manage. His damage potential will be a key story of the Kashmir outcome on October 8.

Amid the hullabaloo, the scrawny visage that hides a shrill tone and sharp tongue shoots a mischievous half grin and fires back at TOI, "I was put in Tihar on August 9, 2019, after the revocation of statehood, and remained there till September 11, 2024. But they (Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti, Farooq, Sajjad Lone) were treated as VVIP guests in five-star hotels. It is strange they are accusing me of being the Centre's pawn."

That is the rebuttal Rashid recites ad nauseum, his calling card positioning himself as the untainted one. But Kashmir is agog with why Rashid, not bailed for fighting the LS polls and to later attend Parliament, was suddenly "let loose" to campaign. The theory is that Engineer, with his native appeal on sensitive issues that target PM Modi, will wean away voters from NC-Congress and PDP who are vowing arm's length from BJP, and create a more friendly post-poll tally for BJP. The threat has alarmed the mainstream.

Engineer laughs at this. "I defeated Omar from jail in Baramulla LS polls by over two lakh votes, and Mehbooba lost heavily in Anantnag. And they are calling me vote-cutters. It is a unique case."

Yet, a veteran observer of local politics, not wishing to be named, gave an alternative view: Jail generated sympathy for Engineer in the LS polls and bail has generated suspicions in the assembly contest. "He may not do as much harm as is being speculated," he estimates.

Engineer claimed the propaganda by Omar and Mehbooba will only benefit him. "Yeh jo public hai, sab jaanti hai (People know everything). I am in jail for 5.5 years and traitors, puppets, rubber stamps of New Delhi are accusing me. People know it."

Besides the bail, there are questions about the well-funded campaign of AIP's 34 candidates, its sudden alliance with the banned Jamaat-e-Islami that surprised all by, out of the blue, deciding to contest the polls backing and fielding Independents. Kashmir is particularly prone to doubts about " Delhi's hand " because PDP defector Altaf Bukhari's Apni Party and later Ghulam Nabi Azad's DPAP could never shrug off the tag of being BJP's proxies. With the two seen as having failed to realise their "potential", Engineer's election-eve bail helped the mainstream players to stoke the fire that AIP is BJP's final play.

But the AIP chief is clear in his mind. "I don't want to belittle myself by responding to their accusations," he said.