The BJP’s win of a Rajya Sabha seat in Jammu and Kashmir has ignited a major political controversy, with allegations of foul play, cross-voting, and a “fixed match" dominating the political discourse. The results defied the clear arithmetic of the J&K assembly, where the National Conference (NC)-led alliance had the numerical strength to comfortably win three seats and was positioned to contest the fourth against the BJP.

The core of the controversy centres on the fourth seat, which the Bharatiya Janata Party managed to secure. NC vice president and J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah immediately took to social media to allege “horse-trading", questioning the source of the four extra votes the BJP needed. He explicitly asked which MLAs “deliberately invalidated their votes" or “voted wrong

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