The National Conference got a shot in the arm hours ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls with the Congress and the PDP deciding to bury the hatchet and vote for the four NC candidates, but not before voicing grievances about the ruling party’s political conduct.
The elections for Rajya Sabha seats for Jammu and Kashmir are scheduled for Friday. The support from the Congress, the PDP and Independents offers the NC a chance to make a clean sweep. The two parties extended their support to NC for the common goal of denying the BJP a victory in any of the four seats.
The Jammu and Kashmir Assembly has 90 MLAs, but its current strength is 88 (two seats are vacant). The NC has 41 MLAs and enjoys the support of six Independents. They will now get the support of nine MLAs from the Congress and the PDP. The BJP has 28 MLAs.
The Congress had on Wednesday boycotted the NC’s meeting with its allies as it publicly censured the party for undermining its trust by denying a safe Rajya Sabha seat.
The INDIA partner had asked the NC to leave one “safe” seat, but the NC was only willing to part with the risky Nagrota seat. The Congress refused to contest, prompting the NC to field candidates on all four seats.
Jammu and Kashmir Congress chief Tariq Hammed Karra said the party’s six legislators held two rounds of talks in the past two days to discuss the issue and were in contact with the central leadership. Karra said the party was guided by the larger goal of unity and the fight against the BJP.
“(Because of that we) chose not to be guided by the treatment we have been meted out by the National Conference as an ally. Our strength may or may not be measured by arithmetical numbers. We offer our six votes as an open support for the larger cause and defer the rest for eventual wisdom that may prevail one way or another,” Karra told reporters at a media conference on Thursday evening.
“We keep all differences with the National Conference on the back burner only to prove our commitment to our own ethos,” he said.
The party hoped the NC would be able to keep its flock together during Friday’s polling, a subtle warning against “the temptations and manipulations” deployed by the BJP.
Relations between the NC and the PDP have been bitter since the beginning, although they had ironed out their differences following the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. The NC had refused to enter into a pre-poll alliance with the PDP, although both are part of the INDIA bloc.
PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said NC chief Farooq Abdullah called her to seek the support of her party’s three legislators for the Rajya Sabha polls.
Mehbooba addressed a media conference to announce their support for the NC and said the decision was taken to keep the BJP at bay. The PDP president said the NC “doesn’t deserve it”, but her party was offering its support to keep @fascist forces@ away.