The party aims at getting Muslim votes and cutting down National Conference patronage.

Following the Reading Room strategy of National Conference founder Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, the BJP high command has asked its Kashmir unit to cultivate an “intellectual class” of retired Army and police officers and former high-ranking civilian officials.

Calling it an “intellectual strategy group”, modelled on Abdullah’s Reading Room group that gave scholarly advice to his Quit Kashmir Movement against Maharaja Hari Singh, the BJP’s policy is aimed at attracting Muslims in the valley. Apart from Abdullah, the Reading Room comprised a motley group of Kashmiris who resented the oppressive Maharaja.

The BJP is in search of people who defy the National Conference for personal, political and ideological reasons, which is going to be a hard bet. “The party has decided to identify people who are Indian nationalists,” Khalid Jehangir, its spokesperson in Jammu and Kashmir, told The Hindu. “The motive is to destroy National Conference patronage. The Abdullah family came close to the Congress and they jointly pushed the Kashmiri people to a corner. Pakistan exploited the situation and brought violence.” Mr. Jehangir, who is compiling a list of Indian nationalists in Kashmir, said the party felt the need of building an “elite intellectual class”, which thought within the framework of the Constitution and had unquestionable faith in Indian democracy. “The response has been overwhelming,” he said.

One such Indian nationalist the party recruited ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 was Farooq Khan, the former Inspector-General of Police, who was accused of being involved in the Pathribal fake encounter, but was given a clean chit by the CBI.

Mr. Jehangir ruled out the recruitment of anyone who had a record of human rights abuse in the Valley. “There is no way we can accommodate criminals in our party. We want to develop Kashmir in good faith,” he said.