Will contest all Kashmir seats: Omar
Mehbooba knocks on Congress doors
Srinagar, Mar 8: The Peoples’ Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), a conglomerate of major political parties in Jammu and Kashmir, is facing a deep rift as the National Conference (NC) has rejected the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) bid to field a candidate from the Anantnag-Rajouri parliamentary seat. This development has cast a shadow over the prospects of a pre-poll alliance among the PAGD constituents, exposing the underlying tensions and power struggles within the coalition ahead of the crucial elections in the Union Territory.
The parties, who are in alliance at the national level (INDIA bloc) have held rounds of talks as both NC and PDP were reluctant to surrender the South Kashmir’s seat.
However, NC Vice President, Omar Abdullah has put all the speculations at bay today by making it public that the party is going to field its candidate from all the seats of Kashmir Valley.
“We have made up our mind that we will field candidates for all the three seats of Kashmir. We had asked Congress to field their candidate for Anantnag-Rajouri parliamentary seats as it stood second in the last general elections. However, the party that has stood third will not be supported and paved the way to field its candidate,” Omar said.
“Had I been told that the INDIA bloc has come up to weaken ourselves then I would have never joined it,” he said while replying to a query about seat sharing in Kashmir.
“We have not pushed PDP out, but the situation has kept it out here as the party stood at number 3 in the previous Lok Sabha elections,” he said.
However, he added that the doors are still open for the alliance for the assembly polls, but stated that the decision about the alliance at that time would be taken after taking PDP’s actions and statements into consideration.
“The party (PDP) despite being in alliance has raised fingers on NC by making statements against it from time to time. Therefore, anything about the assembly polls will be decided only after keeping the happenings into consideration,” he said.
Nonetheless, PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti has expressed dismay over the NC’s decision, stating that the party could have conveyed its decision in a better way, rather than damaging the motive of PAGD, formed in 2019.
“What NC has done today, cannot be even done by the BJP,” she said, adding that the decision taken by NC has only damaged the objectives and motives of the PAGD that was formed to fight for a larger cause.
“We could have been informed about the decision in a better way,” she said, adding that the party is not going to jump into a hurry to make any announcement, but will talk to Congress in this regard and come up with a decision.
“We will announce our decision after holding talks with Congress,” she said.
