© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The National Conference (NC) on Thursday said it would contest all three Lok Sabha seats in the Kashmir Valley and had “informally discussed” seat sharing with the Congress in the Jammu region.
“We have no connection with the NDA,” NC vice-president Omar Abdullah said. “Neither are we going to knock on their doors in the future nor are our doors open for them. Today, our focus is to stop the BJP and, for this, we have informally discussed seat-sharing with the Congress.”
Omar’s clarification that his party continues to be a part of the INDIA alliance came after his father and NC president Farooq Abdullah said, “As far as seat-sharing is concerned, I want to make one thing clear, the National Conference will contest on its own.”
Apart from being a part of the INDIA bloc nationally, the NC is also a member of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) in J&K. The Mehbooba Mufti-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the other INDIA and PAGD party with a strong presence in the Valley, in its response emphasised that “responsible political parties” should “rise above their differences and profit-loss analysis”.
The NC’s position rules out a seat-sharing agreement in the Valley while leaving discussions open for the Jammu, Udhampur, and Ladakh parliamentary seats. The PDP has minimal presence in the Jammu region and has no presence in Ladakh. Of the five parliamentary constituencies in J&K, the NC holds all three in the Valley currently, while the two in Jammu are with the BJP, along with Ladakh. NC leaders, including Omar, are of the view that only the seats currently not with the party should be up for discussion. Of the Valley seats, only Anantnag in south Kashmir has previously been a PDP stronghold and was represented by Mufti.
PDP chief spokesperson Suhail Bukhari told The Indian Express that given the political situation in the country, “any responsible political party is expected to stay united to deal with this onslaught”. He said, “We have always been committed to the idea that we all have to leave aside political differences and gains and losses should not count when it comes to benefits to people. That is also what the people expect of us. This is why Mehbooba ji became the anchor of the PAGD. Our party’s core group me recently and we decided that we will support and facilitate unity, even if it comes at a political cost for us.”
Asked about the NC position on seat-sharing, Bukhari said, “Now that they have publicly announced their decision, we will now sit and discuss a way forward. The bottom line remains that people’s aspirations and their issues require responsible political parties to rise above their differences and a profit-loss analysis.”
Reacting to the latest possible tremors in the INDIA alliance, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said that “different parties have different compulsions, but I have the firm belief that both the NC and the PDP have been part of the INDIA alliance and will continue to be so”.
Both the NC and PDP have been holding internal discussions on candidates for the past few months. This includes deliberations within the PDP for the Srinagar seat that Farooq Abdullah currently represents. The NC, meanwhile, has been considering fielding a new candidate for the Baramulla seat in north Kashmir since its current MP Mohammad Akbar Lone has some health concerns. People’s Conference chairperson Sajad Lone is likely to contest from Baramulla this time.
After the collapse of its coalition government with the BJP in 2018, the PDP lost all three Valley seats in 2019, including Anantnag, where Mufti lost to the NC’s Hasnain Masoodi, a first-time MP. This time, the PDP had been pushing the NC to contest Srinagar and Baramulla and leave Anantnag for it.
