On December 11, 2023 the Supreme Court upheld the abrogation of Article 370, simultaneously directing elections be held. Earlier a delimitation exercise was conducted, which added six new seats for Jammu, but only one for Kashmir. The LG has the authority to nominate five additional members, effectively giving the BJP an initial advantage of five seats, while others begin with none. In Kashmir, the BJP chose to run in only 19. The party’s familiar faces like Hina Bhat and Darakhshan Andrabi were excluded from the candidate list. In 2014, Bhat had declared she would take up an AK-47 if Article 370 were revoked. BJP opted to keep her and others out. Instead, the party focused on bringing in leaders from the Centre and Jammu to highlight their contributions to peace and development. However, the BJP might struggle to get even a single seat in Kashmir, while in Jammu with the Congress not mounting a strong challenge, the BJP could find itself at an advantage.