SRINAGAR, India, Oct 9, (AP): Kashmir’s biggest political party opposed to India's stripping of the region's semi-autonomy won the most seats in a local election, according to official data on Tuesday, following a vote seen as a referendum against the move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government five years ago. National Conference, or NC, won 42 seats, mainly from the Kashmir Valley, the heartland of the anti-India rebellion, according to the data.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party secured 29 seats, all from the Hindu-dominated areas of Jammu. India’s main opposition Congress party, which fought the election in alliance with the NC, succeeded in six constituencies. "People have supported us more than our expectations. Now our efforts will be to prove that we are worth these votes,” Omar Abdullah, the NC leader and the region’s former chief minister who won from two seats, told reporters in the main city of Srinagar.

His father and president of the party, Farooq Abdullah, said that the mandate was to run the region without "police raj (rule)” and try freeing people from jails. "Media will be free,” he said. Late Tuesday, Modi in an address to his party workers in New Delhi said the peaceful election in the region was "the victory of the Indian Constitution and democracy.” "The people of Jammu and Kashmir gave the mandate to the NC alliance, I congratulate them too.

If we look at the vote share percentage, BJP has emerged as the biggest party” in the region, he said. The vote will allow Kashmir to have its own truncated government and a regional legislature, called an assembly, rather than being directly under New Delhi’s rule. However, there will be a limited transition of power from New Delhi to the assembly as Kashmir will remain a "union territory” - directly controlled by the federal government - with India’s Parliament as its main legislator.

Kashmir’s statehood must be restored for the new government to have powers similar to other states of India. But it will not have the special powers it enjoyed before the 2019 changes. "People have given their mandate,” Farooq Abdullah said. "They have proven that they don’t accept the decision that was taken on August 5,” he added referring to India’s move in Aug. 2019.