The Congress’s decision not to contest the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections and the Assembly bypolls in Jammu and Kashmir has marked its first such move in J&K’s electoral history since Independence.
While all four J&K seats in the Rajya Sabha are scheduled for polls on October 24, the by-elections to the Nagrota and Budgam Assembly constituencies in the Union Territory (UT) will be held on November 11.
The ruling National Conference (NC) has fielded its candidates for all four Rajya Sabha seats and the two Assembly seat bypolls after the party’s key INDIA bloc ally Congress turned down its offer to contest the fourth Rajya Sabha seat as well as the Nagrota constituency. The NC will be thus pitted against the principal Opposition BJP in all these polls.
The differences between the two INDIA bloc allies flared up recently in the wake of the NC’s refusal to give the Congress one of the first two Rajya Sabha seats and instead, offering it the fourth seat that the latter considered “unsafe”.
A by-election was necessitated in Nagrota following the demise of senior BJP MLA Devender Singh Rana. Budgam is up for the bypoll after Chief Minister and NC vice-president Omar Abdullah vacated it while retaining his second seat Ganderbal.
In the 2024 J&K Assembly polls, Omar was the consensus candidate for both the allies in Budgam in the Valley, but they had a “friendly fight’’ in Nagrota in Jammu. It is a different matter that Rana scored a resounding win in Nagrota, garnering 48,113 votes as against the NC’s 17,641 with the Congress finishing a distant third with 5,979 votes.
The Congress has justified its decision to skip the Nagrota bypoll, saying it has left the seat for the NC to achieve its “larger goal of defeating the BJP”.
The grand old party has however blamed the NC for its decision to stay away from the Rajya Sabha polls, claiming that its ally did not keep the promise of allotting it one of the first two “safer” seats.
The NC has, however, claimed that the Congress would have the better chances of winning the fourth Rajya Sabha seat as other Opposition or non-aligned parties like the PDP, People’s Conference and Independents would have “readily rallied round the Congress candidate” despite their opposition to the former.
Currently, the J&K Assembly has 88 MLAs, including 41 from the NC, Congress (6), BJP (28), PDP (3), Independents (7) and on each from the People’s Conference, CPM and AAP.
Besides the Congress, the NC has the support of the CPM and five Independents, which together take the ruling alliance’s tally to 53.
To win the first two Upper House seats, whose elections will be held separately, the required votes would be 30 each, which the NC candidates are expected to garner comfortably. For the remaining third and fourth seats, for which polls would be held together, the NC is likely to win the third one by the votes of its 30 MLAs. This would leave 23 of its alliance’s overall tally for the fourth seat, says the NC camp.
“Had the Congress accepted our offer to contest the fourth seat, its candidate would have secured these 23 votes in addition to expectedly getting the PDP’s three, two Independents and one each from the AAP and Sajjad Lone-led People’s Conference, which would have taken its tally to 30 against the BJP’s 28 and ensured its victory,” claimed an NC leader.
With only the NC and BJP left in the fray for these two seats now, Sajjad Lone has already made it clear that he will not vote for either, the NC leader noted, adding that “this would not have been the case if the Congress had contested the seat”.
The Congress leaders have, however, rejected the NC’s claims, saying that after the NC MLAs’ votes for the third seat, there would not be enough numbers to help its nominee clinch the fourth seat.
The NC camp has however maintained that numbers would have stacked up for the Congress’s Rajya Sabha candidate if it had not “deserted” the fray.
“The Congress lost its will to take on the BJP,” a senior NC leader said, also questioning the Congress’s “retreat” from even the Nagrota seat where the party had fielded its candidate in the 2024 polls even against the NC despite their pre-poll alliance. “Perhaps the Congress developed cold feet, fearing poor optics in the event of its loss to the BJP in Nagrota,” he added.
The BJP has fielded Rana’s daughter Devyani Rana from Nagrota, whose prospects have got a boost by the “sympathy factor”.
A senior Congress leader said the party had contested Nagrota in 2024 instead of backing the NC candidate as “the party then thought of getting the support of the majority Hindu community voters there”. He added that “This time, we have left Nagrota for the NC since it had finished as the runner-up in the 2024 election.”
Former J&K Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) chief Vikar Rasool accused the NC leadership of “betraying the Congress and helping the BJP”. He alleged that the NC leadership “promised” the Congress high command in Delhi of leaving one of the first two “safe” Rajya Sabha seats for it, but forgot it after returning to J&K. He also claimed that in “collusion” with the BJP the NC has fielded a “lightweight” candidate Shamim Begum in Nagrota to “ensure the BJP’s win there”.
Cong to back NC in polls
Senior Congress leader and MLA G A Mir, however, told The Indian Express that despite their differences over the NC “not keeping its promise of leaving a safe Rajya Sabha seat” for the Congress, both continue to be allies. “So Congress MLAs will vote for NC candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections keeping in view the larger interest of keeping the communal and divisive forces away,” he said, adding that the Congress will also support the NC in the Nagrota bypoll.
JKPCC chief Tariq Hameed Karra also asserted that the party will support the NC candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections to “keep the BJP out”. He also wrote a letter to NC president Farooq Abdullah to assure him in this regard.
