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Talks on for few contentious seats, consensus on majority, Omar Abdullah on NC-Congress alliance
NC and Congress form a pre-poll alliance for J&K elections. Omar Abdullah says they are working on seat-sharing. First phase of polls starts on September 18.
A day after the announcement of a pre-poll alliance between the National Conference (NC) and the Congress, the former party’s vice-president Omar Abdullah on Friday said both were adamant on a few seats and were working to arrive at a mutually acceptable solution.
Omar accompanied the alliance’s first candidate, NC’s Sakina Itoo from Damhal-Hanjipora (Noorabad before the delimitation) in south Kashmir’s Kulgam, to the filing of nomination papers.
While talking to the media later, he said the NC-Congress have the consensus “to a large extent”.
“There are 90 seats and I can say that in the majority of the seats, we have managed to get a consensus. We are adamant on a few seats and Congress’s local leaders are also adamant on a few seats. Today, we will sit again and try to bring the remaining seats under the alliance and announce candidates from there,” he said.
Omar, however, had refused to answer which seats the party would be fighting from. “I can’t answer individually about which seat will go to NC and which to Congress and whether there are some seats which we should leave for other parties,” he said.
NC insiders say discussions were still underway for five to six seats.
Omar said the NC would be issuing its list of candidates before August 27, the last day of filing nominations for the first phase of elections to 24 seats on September 18.
“Why is there an issue about our list not coming out? Which party has issued their list? The parties which issued their lists have not announced the names of their candidates. They have played safe and issued constituency in-charge lists. Our constituency in-charges have been working for the past 10 years,” he said.
NC president Farooq Abdullah had on Thursday said his party has finalised an alliance with the Congress for all 90 assembly seats in Jammu & Kashmir, adding that they were open to also bringing the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on board after the elections, indicating the possibility of the three INDIA bloc members coming together in the UT’s political arena.
The former chief minister made the announcement hours after leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge met him and his son Omar in Srinagar.
Farooq had said CPIM leader MY Tarigami was also on board the alliance.
The first assembly elections in Jammu & Kashmir in a decade will be held in three phases on September 18 and 25, and October 1. They will be the first assembly polls in the restive region since its special status and statehood were scrapped five years ago and are likely to be the last step before the Union territory’s statehood is restored.
The NC and Congress contested the Lok Sabha polls together, with the former winning two of the three seats it contested on and the latter failing to open its account on the remaining three. The PDP was also unable to win a single Lok Sabha seat.
“Well begun is half done. Today was a good beginning and hopefully this will have its effects on other seats,” Omar said on Itoo’s nomination.
“We have put forth our manifesto before people and hope that J&K people, while deciding for a government, will give NC a chance,” he said.
Meanwhile, senior PDP leader Mehboob Beg filed his nomination papers from the Anantnag constituency.
Over 23.27 lakh voters will be exercising their franchise in the first phase of elections in J&K in first phase with 16 seats from south Kashmir and eight from Jammu division on September 18. The notification has been issued for Anantnag, Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam districts in Kashmir Division; and Doda, Ramban and Kishtwar districts in Jammu Division.
