E-Paper
Alliance partners uneased over Farooq Abdullah’s ‘go solo’ in Jammu and Kashmir remark
National Conference leaders maintain that the party will not spare any of the three Lok Sabha seats from Kashmir for its allies
National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah’s remarks of the party contesting the impending Lok Sabha elections alone has left its INDIA bloc allies, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in particular, at unease.
Notably, PDP was eyeing room for party president Mehbooba Mufti in the alliance’s seat-sharing arrangements.
In Jammu and Kashmir, NC, PDP and Congress are all part of the INDIA bloc alliance, which has been battered by desertions and tough seat-sharing negotiations among allies at the national level.
Several NC leaders have dropped hints that the party will not spare any of the three Lok Sabha seats from Kashmir for its allies. The party had emerged victorious from the seats in question during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
NC, however, is open for talks on three other seats from the region — two in Jammu and one in Ladakh — with the Congress.
Reacting to the latest development, PDP chief spokesperson Suhail Bukhari said, “Our party and leadership has always stood for unity and are even ready to make sacrifices. We have made sacrifices in the past as part of the Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) adapting to the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.”
NC president Farooq Abdullah had during a press conference in Srinagar on Thursday said his party will contest elections on all five Lok Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir independently.
“I want to make one thing clear. The National Conference will fight with its own strength and there is no second question on this,” Abdullah had said.
His son and party vice-president Omar Abdullah, however, later clarified that NC was a part of the INDIA alliance and will hold talks with Congress. He, however, made no mention of PDP.
The NC president’s remarks have not gone down well within PDP’s top leadership, though the party leaders have been asked not to speak on the issue just yet. Party seniors, however, dub it as a “betrayal” on NC’s part in private conversations.
“This is expected from a party that talks of unity in PAGD and INDIA alliances only to strengthen their own base and party. We have been paying the costs for being a part of the alliance and no other regional party has faced this level of crackdown,” a senior PDP leader close to party president Mehbooba Mufti said while requesting anonymity.
Another senior party leader said NC had a history of betraying alliance partners, saying, “We were already expecting it and that is why some of our leaders would bring up their past betrayals.”
Both NC and PDP hit the ground running months ago to ascertain their strength across the five Lok Sabha constituencies falling under Jammu and Kashmir.
