Why Are Parties Seeing Independents As A Threat In J&K Assembly Polls

A Delhi court on Tuesday granted interim bail to Baramulla MP Engineer Rashid till October 2 for campaigning in the Jammu and Kashmir elections. Rashid, who has been in jail since 2019 in a terror funding case, won the recent Lok Sabha polls as an Independent candidate from Baramulla, defeating National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah and People's Conference chief Sajad Lone. Interestingly, Rashid's Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) has 34 candidates in the J&K poll race. Now, both the PDP and the National Conference have come down heavily on the BJP for allegedly using smaller parties and independents as proxies in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections and undermining the credibility of the election process. Why are political parties looking at smaller parties, and independents as threats? Will the release of jailed Engineer Rashid on interim bail make the polls force the parties to reshape their strategies?