Srinagar: The Congress, the National Conference (NC) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have reached a broader agreement for a pre-poll alliance in Jammu and Kashmir ahead of the assembly elections, leaving the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) led by Mehbooba Mufti, an INDIA bloc partner, in the lurch.
Speaking with reporters outside his Srinagar residence on Thursday, August 22, the NC president Farooq Abdullah said that the three parties have worked out a seat sharing arrangement on all the 90 assembly constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir “to defeat the divisive forces” which have “caused immense suffering” in the country.
Asked whether the PDP was going to be part of the alliance, Abdullah evaded the question. Although the NC president said that the “document” of the seat sharing agreement with the Congress and the CPI(M) was in the process of being signed and that it would be released by Thursday evening, there was no such announcement by the NC at the end of the day.
The Congress, too, did not make any announcement on the alliance, prompting speculation that the two parties had hit a roadblock over the choice and the number of seats each one was going to contest in the upcoming election.
Sources said that besides its strongholds in Jammu, the Congress, which has grown in strength in J&K in recent weeks and months, was also negotiating that the NC vacate some seats in Kashmir Valley where the party is eyeing to field its own candidates.
The two parties had a pre-poll alliance in J&K in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections with the NC fielding its candidates on three seats of Kashmir while the Congress contested the remaining two seats in Jammu.
Earlier in the day, the Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, also took exception on the issue of his party’s pre-poll alliance with the regional parties in Jammu and Kashmir, saying that he was in favour of such a move but “not at the cost of respect for Congress workers”. Gandhi said that the party leadership has conveyed this to the newly appointed J&K Pradesh Congress Committee president Tariq Karra.
Addressing the party workers and leaders in Srinagar on Thursday, Gandhi said that the visit of Congress’s top leadership was aimed to send a message that the representation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir was important.
“It is important for us and it is important for the country. We are very clear in our national manifesto also that it is a priority for us that the people of J&K and Ladakh should get their democratic rights back,” Gandhi said, while vowing to restore J&K’s statehood if the Congress was voted to power.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that the party was going to seek the feedback of workers and leaders before making any announcement on allying with the regional parties, “Rahulji wants to take everyone along in this election. We have stopped a dictator from acquiring absolute majority. The BJP used to take advantage of its brute majority to pass acts like the farm laws,” he said.
The CPI (M), which is part of the INDIA bloc, also did not issue any statement on the alliance. The party’s general secretary M.Y. Tarigami said that the realisation that there should be a united effort to isolate the BJP because of what it has done to J&K is growing not only in Kashmir Valley but also in Jammu and Ladakh as well.
“The assaults on democracy, civil liberties and freedom of expression, and the subjugation of sane voices has not impacted only one section of the population but the whole of Jammu and Kashmir. People want secular forces to be on their side. I personally believe that the situation demands that all the secular forces must be roped in to defeat the communal forces,” Tarigami said.
The CPI(M) leader said that there are combinations of “different interest groups and individuals who have interests and clashes are bound to occur” when different ideologies join hands for a common cause.
“Nevertheless the willingness to cooperate with each other is important in this scenario of disillusionment and hopelessness in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
A senior PDP leader, who spoke with The Wire on the condition of anonymity, compared the announcement of pre-poll alliance by Abdullah with the 1975 Indira-Sheikh accord, saying that the NC founder Sheikh Abdullah legitimised the assault on Jammu and Kashmir which was launched by the Congress with his arrest in 1953 by agreeing to become the chief minister in 1975 when J&K used to have its own Prime Minister.
He said that Farooq Abdullah committed a similar mistake by throwing his party into the electoral arena in 1996 assembly election, the first after the eruption of the armed insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir.
“Farooq has repeated his past mistake for few crumbs of power again today. The fact is that Jammu and Kashmir has lost its dignity. The NC couldn’t restore the autonomy with more than two third majority in 1996 assembly elections. Should we expect a miracle this time? Our party has a political struggle ahead and election is part of that struggle,” the PDP leader said.
Political observers believe that the PDP might not be able to put up a strong show in the coming election, given the crisis the party has been going through after the BJP pulled out of its coalition government in 2018.
“But even if the party is restricted to single-digit figure, it might still have a role in the government formation because it is unlikely that a single party will have a majority in the assembly once the results are out,” said a Srinagar-based political analyst, who wished not to be named.
The elections in Jammu and Kashmir, which will be held after nearly 10 years, are scheduled in three phases on September 18, September 25 and October 1 while the results are expected to be announced on October.