Cong hopeful of tie-up, but ready to go it alone
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Mar 11: Just a day after the Election Commission announced schedule for Lok Sabha elections, all national and regional political parties sounded poll bugle amidst indications that six Lok Sabha seats in the State were headed for multi-cornered contest with National Conference showing no interest in seat sharing arrangement with the Congress.
The National Conference has cleared the names of party president Dr Farooq Abdullah for Srinagar-Budgam Lok Sabha seat, Mohammad Akbar Lone, former Legislative Assembly Speaker, for Baramulla-Kupwara constituency, BR Kundal, former Chief Secretary, for Jammu-Poonch and shortlisted names of Retired High Court Judge, Justice Hasnain Masoodi and Peer Hussain, retired KAS officer for Anantnag-Pulwama constituency.
“We will shortly take decision on Ladakh and Udhampur-Doda seats,” a senior National Conference leader said, adding that they were zeroing-in on couple of names from Kargil district for Ladakh Lok Sabha seat and a “non-Muslim” candidate for Udhampur-Doda constituency.
The BJP Parliamentary Board would meet at the weekend in New Delhi under the joint leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah to clear names of candidates for first two or three phases of the elections. Jammu-Poonch and Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha seats will go to polls in first two phases on April 11 and 18.
According to party sources, Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Dr Jitendra Singh, who had achieved rare distinction by defeating former Chief Minister of J&K and present Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad in his maiden electoral foray in 2014 and Choudhary Lal Singh, a dissident BJP leader, who had represented Udhampur seat for two terms in 2004 and 2009 on Congress mandate, were front runners for the party mandate for Udhampur seat.
Jugal Kishore Sharma, sitting MP from Jammu-Poonch seat and State BJP president Ravinder Raina are in the fray for Jammu seat while former Minister Chering Dorjay, MLC and Chairman Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHD), Leh, Jigmet Namgayal were being considered for Ladakh seat.
Significantly, Lal Singh and former Minister and three-time MLA, Harshdev Singh of National Panthers Party have already announced their candidature for Udhampur seat.
The BJP will also contest all three Lok Sabha seats from Kashmir, though it has no chances on them.
BJP general secretary, Incharge Jammu and Kashmir, Ram Madhav, is likely to visit here on February 14 to meet senior party leaders to shortlist names for the Lok Sabha seats and put them before the party’s Parliamentary Board, which has the final say.
The Parliamentary Board comprised the Prime Minister, the BJP president, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Defence Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman and BJP general secretary, Ram Lal among others.
Admitting that they received feelers from the Congress for seat sharing arrangement for Lok Sabha elections, sources in the National Conference said they have explained to them that the National Conference never benefited from such a tie-up while on the other, the Congress has always gained from the NC vote bank.
“As of now, the seat adjustment formula of the Congress has not been accepted,” they said, adding the Congress wanted seat sharing formula of 3:3 with National Conference like 2014 Parliamentary polls when NC had contested all three seats of Kashmir valley and the Congress two seats of Jammu region and one from Ladakh.
Significantly, despite alliance, the NC and Congress had lost all six Parliamentary seats with BJP winning two seats of Jammu and one from Ladakh and PDP taking all three seats of the Kashmir valley. Later, PDP MP from Srinagar, Tariq Hamid Qarra had quit Lok Sabha seat as well as the party in 2016 while Mehbooba Mufti had resigned from Anantnag Parliamentary constituency after being elected as the Chief Minister in 2017. NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah had won Srinagar Lok Sabha seat in the by-election in April 2017 while by-poll couldn’t be held in Anantnag segment.
Sources said the Congress, keeping in tune with the party’s national policy to enter into electoral pacts with regional parties to defeat the BJP, wanted alliance with the National Conference as the NC has good number of votes in both Jammu-Poonch, Udhampur-Doda and Ladakh seats.
However, the National Conference seemed to be reluctant to repeat 2014 experiment especially at a time when the Assembly elections too could be held later this year. The NC leaders were of the view that if they shift their votes towards Congress at this stage, it would become difficult for them to bring back the same electorates in the Assembly polls, if they are held in next few months.
The National Conference, which used to win eight to nine Assembly seats from Jammu region, was relegated to just three in 2014 Assembly polls, which were held after the Parliamentary elections the same year.
Congress leaders were still confident that their party high command would prevail upon senior National Conference leaders for electoral tie-up.
However, in the absence of any kind of truck with the NC, the Congress could field Tariq Hamid Karra from Srinagar and GA Mir, State party president, from Anantnag Lok Sabha seats. It was considering names of former PCC (I) chief Prof Saif-ud-Din Soz, Taj Mohi-ud-Din and Ghulam Nabi Monga for Baramulla constituency. Karra had defeated Dr Farooq Abdullah in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Sources indicated that the Congress might not field Ghulam Nabi Azad from Udhampur-Doda seat again as it wants to utilize his services for campaigning in various States including high-stake Uttar Pradesh. The Congress has approached a former Chief Justice for Udhampur seat but he too was reluctant, sources said.
Congress was considering names of Madan Lal Sharma, who had represented Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat twice in 2004 and 2009 before losing to BJP’s Jugal Kishore Sharma in 2014, Sham Lal Sharma, former Minister and Raman Bhalla for Jammu segment. Some of the Congress leaders were in favour of fielding a Scheduled Caste leader for Jammu-Poonch seat.
Congress sources said majority of party leadership was averse to have any kind of tie-up with the PDP in Lok Sabha elections as they observed that this would annoy National Conference, with whom the party always eyed coalition Government in the State in the event of hung Assembly.
The PDP, according to sources, was likely to field candidates on all six seats of Lok Sabha and it was set to finalize names at high-level meeting soon. The PDP would now adopt aggressive and hardline approach in the Lok Sabha elections, they said, adding that top party leadership has zeroed-in on names for all six seats but will announce them only after approval of its high-powered Parliamentary Board.
The People’s Conference of Sajjad Lone has cleared the names of Retired IGP Raja Aijaz Ali for Baramulla-Kupwara seat, Irfan Raza Ansari for Srinagar and Choudhary Zaffar for Anantnag constituency.
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