Exposing sharp differences among the ruling alliance partners, the National Conference (NC) and the Congress, on sharing of seats for the election to the four vacant Rajya Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir, the latter on Sunday unanimously decided not to contest the polls as the NC offered them an unsafe seat on which the BJP’s position appeared strong.
The decision to keep away from the Rajya Sabha polls was taken in a meeting of the core committee of the Congress in Srinagar.
PCC president Tariq Hameed Karra announced after the meeting that it has been unanimously decided that the Congress will not field its candidate for the polls.
He said that the Congress high command had sought a safe seat from among the seats numbered 1 or 2. ”However, the NC offered us seat number 4, which is not safe. Since the NC did not offer us a safe seat, we have decided not to contest the election,” he said.
Karra said, ”We will open our channels of discussion with the NC on the by-election for two seats of the assembly.”
He said that the party had written a letter to the NC for leaving a safe seat for the Congress, but they have not responded so far. Tomorrow is the last day for filing nominations.
The PCC chief said that the Congress legislators were also annoyed over the NC having so far failed to constitute a coordination committee to oversee the governance.
The NC has already announced candidates for the three safe seats. Its candidates are Chowdhry Ramzan, Sajad Kitchloo and Shami Oberoi. With the party’s strength in the assembly, the NC-Congress alliance was in a position to win three seats, while the BJP could win one.
The BJP this morning announced its candidates for three Rajya Sabha seats. The J&K unit’s president, Sat Sharma, has been nominated for seat number 2, whereas Rakesh Mahajan and Dr Ali Mohammad Mir are the party’s other candidates.