Mehbooba Mufti isolation in INDIA deepens as Congress, NC seal deal for J&K, Ladakh seats

Of these three seats, the NC has already announced the candidature of Gujjar leader Mian Altaf Lahrvi from Anantnag-Rajouri. Although NC president and incumbent Srinagar MP Farooq Abdullah will not contest this time, the party is yet to announce whether his son and ex-chief minister Omar Abdullah would replace him as its candidate.

For the two seats in the Jammu region, both the NC and the PDP are backing the Congress candidates – Raman Bhalla in Jammu and Chaudhary Lal Singh in Udhampur.

Meanwhile, in New Delhi, the Congress and the NC officially announced their seat-sharing agreement for J&K and Ladakh Monday, with Omar, accompanied by senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid, telling a press conference that the Congress will contest the Udhampur, Jammu and Ladakh seats while the NC will field its candidates in the three Kashmir seats.

While PDP president Mehbooba Mufti is in the fray, NC has not yet said if its chief Farooq Abdullah will contest. (File Photo)

On whether the PDP is still a part of the INDIA bloc, Khurshid reportedly said, “PDP is in our alliance. Seat adjustment is one part of the alliance and an overall alliance is a different issue. Since J&K is small in area, there is not much scope for seat adjustment despite our best efforts.”

Earlier, the PDP’s chief spokesperson Suhail Bukhari told The Indian Express, “We have extended our support to the Congress beyond the three seats that we are contesting. It is an unconditional support without a rider that they must support us. We are doing this because we believe that Congress is the strongest force taking on the hegemony of BJP that is aimed at destroying the democratic, constitutional fabric of the country.”

In October last year, the NC-Congress combine had contested the Kargil Autonomous Hill Development Council elections, clinching it by defeating the BJP. Both the allies have been together running the Council since, sharing its top positions.

Gearing up for a tough electoral battle in the Valley, the PDP is banking on people’s support on the basis of Mehbooba’s strong stand against the revocation of Article 370, which granted special status to J&K, and her pitch for unity to “fight for the larger cause”. Announcing her party’s candidates, she said, “Mere awaaz hi mera manshoor hai (my voice is my manifesto).”
In the 2019 polls, the PDP suffered a huge setback in the Valley in the wake of its previous alliance with the BJP, with the NC sweeping all its three seats. In Anantnag, the NC’s debutant candidate, retired judge Hasnain Masoodi, defeated both Mehbooba and senior Congress leader G A Mir. The BJP bagged the remaining three seats including Jammu, Udhampur and Ladakh.

In her first press conference after her release from 14-month detention following the crackdown on the Kashmir leaders in August 2019, Mehbooba had launched a scathing attack on the BJP, with the flag of the erstwhile state of J&K in front of her.

Since then, she has attacked the BJP and J&K Union Territory administration for its various decisions ranging from sacking of employees to “weaponisation” of agencies.

Both Mehbooba and Omar walked with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during his Bharat Jodo Yatra’s final J&K leg in January 2023.
While the PDP has continued to grapple with some of the baggage of forming its coalition government with the BJP in 2014, the party has always argued that the decision was to respect the mandate of the Jammu region which had voted overwhelmingly for the BJP.

The party has also raked up Omar’s stint as a minister in the NDA government under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The cadres of both the PDP and the NC have continued to remain at odds on the ground even though their Gupkar alliance had comfortably won the District Development Council elections in December 2020.

For the Lok Sabha polls, the NC refused to concede any seat to the PDP, citing the latter’s performance in the 2019 polls.
The NC’s cadre in the Valley is also said to have been buoyed by the delimitation of seats. Srinagar has been expanded beyond Central Kashmir to include some South Kashmir districts, and Anantnag, all the way to Poonch and Rajouri.

NC sources said it is unlikely that any senior INDIA leaders would visit J&K for campaigning in order to avoid taking sides, leaving the fray for the regional allies to slug it out.