SRINAGAR: Congress and JK National Conference on Monday announced an arrangement that will help the two parties to contest the Lok Sabha polls together. They will be contesting three seats each from the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
JKNC will contest from three Kashmir berths including Baramulla, Central; Kashmir and Pir Panchal while Congress will contest from Ladakh, Jammu and Udhampur. Omar said the three nominations have already been made and three more will be made in the coming days.
Salamn Khursheed said that being part of the alliance and seat adjustment are two different things. He said efforts were made to convince the other party (read PDP) that the seats with JKNC would be retained by them but that somehow could not happen.
Omar said his party made serious efforts to convince the PDP that while they must support JKNC in Lok Sabha elements, the party will keep its doors open for an alliance during the assembly election which is supposed to take place later this year. Apart from Chief Election Commissioner, Omar said the Home Minister recently hinted that elections in Jammu and Kashmir will be held within the time frame set by the Supreme Court.
Salman said the PDP is part of the alliance but seat adjustment is a different issue. He said alliance issues are bigger which the alliance leaders will only be able to say. Omar said right now the alliance is for Lok Sabha and once it is over the PDP can have negotiations with the Congress.
Omar said even before the arrangement was being finalised, JKNC leaders had been practically out to campaign for the party, he said Dr Farooq Abdullah personally attended the nomination filing of the Congress candidate. He hoped Congress leaders in Jammu and Kashmir would reciprocate.
Omar Abdullah said it was “almost a direct contest” while referring to Ghulam Nabi Azad. He said Azad belongs to Doda where he has influence but he did not contest from there because any vote that his contest would deduct would damage BJP. Instead, he said Azad is contesting from Anantnag.
