Sonia

New Delhi, Sept. 1: The Congress believes that yesterday’s Amarnath accord will cut its losses in Jammu.

At a meeting to discuss election-bound states, the general secretary in charge of Jammu and Kashmir told Sonia Gandhi this evening that things would be “on course” in Jammu.

The Congress’s political stakes are higher in Jammu than in the Valley. In the 2002 Assembly polls, the party had won almost all its seats from Jammu and Ladakh.

The Congress had feared that if the Jammu agitation continued, it would lose seats to the BJP without gaining anything in the Valley or Ladakh.

Jammu’s deputy mayor, a Congress member and wife of the governor’s adviser, S.S. Bloeria, was keen to publicise the Amarnath agreement but was advised by the leadership to wait for now, sources said.

Congress sources also claimed that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad had failed to draw as much mileage from the accord as they would have liked. “Our feedback is that their meetings in Jammu were not successful,” a Congress official said.

Party sources suggested that if the Assembly elections, due in October, were postponed, the Congress could further reduce the damage. Besides, they said, the Centre would now find it easier to hand concessions to the Valley without being accused of bias and appeasement.

The sources ruled out talks with the Hurriyat and noted that former ally People’s Democratic Party (PDP) now stood “isolated” in the political mainstream because of its refusal to endorse the accord.

The Congress is cut up with the PDP for allegedly stoking passions in the Valley against Jammu. The sources said the National Conference had “proved again that while politically it is anchored in the Valley, its heart truly goes out to India”.