NEW DELHI, Aug 26: The Congress and the National Conference are claimed to have finalised deal for 85 of the 90 seats in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly to contest the elections in the Union Territory next month.
The senior leaders from each side on Monday evening announced the finalisation of the deal bringing talks to a successful end hours before the deadline to file nominations for the first phase.
The NC will contest the majority of seats – 51 – and the Congress will contest 32, the latter’s J&K unit chief, Tariq Hameed Karra, told reporters, adding two will be left for the CPIM and Panthers Party with both the Congress and the NC deciding to put up candidates on five seats.
There will be a “friendly but disciplined contest” on five seats, which suggests that differences between the two parties – both of whom are part of the INDIA opposition bloc – were not fully ironed out, even after the Congress rushed two senior leaders to Srinagar on Monday morning.
This will be the first Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir in a decade; the 2019 poll was not held after the centre scrapped Article 370 and 35A, and bifurcated J&K into two union territories.
“It is a matter of great happiness… we started this campaign together against forces trying to divide people here. The INDIA bloc was formed so we can fight forces that want to communalise, divide, and break the country,” NC boss and former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah told the press. “Today we have completed negotiations and have completed coordination in a very good (and) cordial atmosphere. The Congress and the National Conference will fight the election together…”
Congress leader KC Venugopal, one of the two big names deployed, echoed the sentiment. “We have completed our discussion and reached a formula… we will fight together and we will win the J&K election. The Congress and National Conference are coming together to form the next government…” the Lok Sabha MP declared, accusing the BJP of “trying to destroy the soul of J&K.”
The sources had earlier said the NC had offered the Congress only five seats in the Kashmir Valley and between 28 and 30 in the Jammu region. The national party, however, was holding out for more, particularly in areas its ally perceived as strongholds. That the Congress and NC were going to fight this election together had been announced earlier. After it seemed seat-sharing talks were failing the Congress sent Mr Venugopal and Salman Khurshid to bring them back on track. The two met Omar Abdullah this morning. This is the first time since 1987 that the Congress and the NC has formed a pre-poll alliance in Jammu and Kashmir.
Omar Abdullah – who had earlier declared he would not contest a J&K election as long as it remains a union territory – has backtracked and will fight from Ganderbal, it was announced. He won the seat in 2008 and his father held it for three consecutive terms between 1983 and 1996.
Confirmation of the Congress-NC alliance drew fierce barbs from the BJP. The Union Home Minister Amit Shah fired 10 questions at the Congress last week and accused the party, which he said had “played with the unity and security of the country in its greed for power” in the past and again “putting itself before the country.” The BJP, meanwhile, released its first two lists with 16 candidates on Monday, albeit with some confusion.
(Manas Dasgupta)