Srinagar:
The Congress and National Conference have reached a deal to share Jammu and Kashmir’s 90 Assembly seats ahead of next month’s election, senior leaders from each side said Monday evening, bringing talks to a successful end hours before the deadline to file nominations for the first phase.
The NC will contest the majority of seats – 51 – and the Congress will contest 32, the latter’s J&K unit chief, Tariq Hameed Karra, told reporters, adding two will be left for the CPIM and Panthers Party.
Significantly, there will be a “friendly but disciplined contest” on five seats, which suggests that differences between the two parties – both of whom are part of the INDIA opposition bloc – were not fully ironed out, even after the Congress rushed two senior leaders to Srinagar this morning.
This will be the first Assembly election in a decade; the 2019 election was cancelled after the centre scrapped Article 370 and Article 35A and bifurcate J&K into two union territories.
“It is a matter of great happiness… we started this campaign together against forces trying to divide people here. The INDIA bloc was formed so we can fight forces that want to communalise, divide, and break the country,” NC boss and former ex Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah told the press.
“Today we have completed negotiations and have completed coordination in a very good (and) cordial atmosphere. The Congress and the National Conference will fight the election together…”
Congress leader KC Venugopal, one of the two big names deployed, echoed the sentiment.
“We have completed our discussion and reached a formula… we will fight together and we will win the J&K election. The Congress and National Conference are coming together to form the next government…” the Lok Sabha MP declared, accusing the BJP of “trying to destroy the soul of J&K”.
Earlier today sources told NDTV the NC had offered the Congress only five seats in the Kashmir Valley and between 28 and 30 in the Jammu region. The national party, however, was holding out for more, particularly in areas its ally perceived as strongholds.
That the Congress and NC were going to fight this election together had been announced earlier.
NC leader Omar Abdullah, Farooq Abdullah’s son and a former Chief Minister too, had said last week that a broad agreement had been reached. “Consensus has been reached to a large extent…I can tell you we have reached a consensus on the maximum seats out of the 90,” he told the media.