The recent elections for the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly were a landmark. The 40 percent-plus voter turnout, while low by Indian standards, was considerable under the circumstances. Also, the polls were remarkably fair, although, being held in the shadow of the gun, not entirely free. Nevertheless, it takes enormous optimism to imagine India now easily converting the opportunity thus presented into a resolution of the Kashmir problem – one of the thorniest territorial and state-formation disputes in the world.
Consider the developments that immediately followed the elections. The Indian National Congress, which with 20 won the largest number of the assembly's total 87 seats, was loathe to share power with the group with second largest showing of 16 seats, the People's Democratic Party (PDP). All 16 of the PDP's elected representatives came from the largely 'Muslim' Kashmir Valley, which accounts for 46 of the 87 seats, the remainder 41 being divided between the predominantly 'Hindu' Jammu region, which accounts for 37, and the mainly 'Buddhist' Ladakh, which has four. Since the electoral makeup is such, state-level parties rarely have a pan-state presence. As much was reflected in the election results, with no party being able to claim a majority of the seats in the assembly.
Following this result, the PDP staked a claim to the chief minister's post on the basis that it represented the 'problem' region, the Kashmir valley. Small parties from Jammu made their claims too but with an opposite argument centred on the 'neglect' of their region. With the Congress putting in its own claim, via a Kashmiri-speaking chief ministerial candidate from Jammu, the situation got truly enmeshed in realpolitik; nobody was willing to budge, and the deadlock hardened.
Ironically, after the people of J&K turned in a mandate to change an incumbent government for the first time ever, on 17 October New Delhi imposed central rule on the state because the exercise seemed to be headed nowhere. The Congress and the PDP continued to bicker and everyone seemed poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.