Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Nov 16: In a major jolt to the National Conference (NC), their candidate from Anantnag constituency and former Member Parliament, Dr Mehboob Beg, today pulled out of race, quit his party and announced his support to the rival candidate and PDP patron, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was quick to react to Beg’s departure and admitted that it is a setback but said it was on cards. “There can be no denying that Beg’s departure is something NC could have done without but it has been on the cards for a couple of weeks”, he wrote on Twitter.
Omar asked PDP to watch recordings of Beg about his opinion about the party. “If the PDP really wants to know what Beg thinks of them just pull out the recordings of his campaign speeches from the last LS polls”, tweeted Omar.
Beg said that he will not contest elections from NC and will vigorously campaign for his rival candidate. “I will not contest elections on National Conference ticket. I will vigorously support Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. The reason is there is wave in favour of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed across Kashmir valley by and large”, he added.
The former MP said that the NC has no ability to halt BJP march in the State but the PDP patron has. “The BJP, in fact it is the RSS offensive in the State and the National Conference has no ability to halt it. This ability was only with Sheir-e-Kashmir (Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah) and Fakhr-e-Kashmir (Afzal Beg). Only Mufti sahib has the ability now to stop Narender Modi’s offensive in the State”, he said.
Beg lashed out at National Conference Ministers in the State Government and said that they were worried only about their own constituencies. “One Minister would look after development of constituency of another Minister and vice versa. Since Anantnag had no Minister, it got neglected in terms of development,” he said.
The former MP is son of National Conference stalwart Mirza Afzal Beg, announced his decision to quit the party at a workers meet at his residence at Sarnal in Anantnag district. He also turned down the NC mandate given to him to contest the elections from Anantnag Assembly segment, which is going to polls in the fourth phase of elections on December 14.
Beg, however, said he will not join the PDP. Giving reasons for his quitting the ruling party, Beg said he was never taken into confidence by the party leadership and his suggestions on organisational matters and development works in Anantnag were ignored.
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