Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Ghulam Nabi Azad are set to contest against each other in the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections.
Mufti further launched an attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and said, “The BJP says everything is fine, if everything is fine then why Section 144 has been imposed in Ladakh. Why people of Jammu are upset…”
Mufti, the chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Former People’s Democratic Party (PDP), will fight the polls from the Anantnag-Rajouri seat. Her decision comes after Congress-NC sealed the seat-sharing alliance in valley, leaving out PDP though she has assured to support congress on two seats.
Though to extinguish the rumours, Congress said Mufti is with us in India Alliance.
Senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid says PDP remains part of INDIA bloc, claiming seat-sharing in a smaller region should be delinked from larger alliance.
With the Congress officially extending its support to the National Conference (NC) for the three parliamentary seats in the Valley, the Mehbooba Mufti-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seems to have been cornered in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in the Lok Sabha polls, even as the three parties remain constituents of the Opposition INDIA alliance.
As part of the alliance, Udhampur, Jammu and Ladakh will go to the Congress and the NC will contest in Anantnag, Baramulla and Srinagar. PDP will have it’s own candidates.
Its National Conference vs PDP in Jammu and Kashmir at LS polls
While vowing to defeat “divisive forces” in J&K, both the National Conference and the PDP have declared that they will contest all three seats against each other in the Valley.
On Sunday, the PDP announced that Mehbooba will fight from Anantnag-Rajouri, Waheed ur Rehman Para from Srinagar and former Rajya Sabha MP Fayaz Ahmed Mir from the Baramulla seat.
Of these three seats, the National Conference has already announced the candidature of Gujjar leader Mian Altaf Lahrvi from Anantnag-Rajouri.
Farooq Abdullah not decided his seat yet
Although NC president and incumbent Srinagar MP Farooq Abdullah will not contest this time, the party is yet to announce whether his son and ex-chief minister Omar Abdullah would replace him as candidate or not.
For the two seats in the Jammu region, both the NC and the PDP are backing the Congress candidates – Raman Bhalla in Jammu and Chaudhary Lal Singh in Udhampur.
Now, Gupkaar is ‘Gupt’ (hidden) in Valley!
The Gupkar Alliance in Jammu and Kashmir is now completely over. The two main parties of the Gupkar Alliance formed in 2019, National Conference and PDP, are fielding their candidates against each other on three Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir.
In this sequence, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has decided that the party chief and former CM Mehbooba Mufti will contest from Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat. Mehbooba Mufti has previously been an MP from Anantnag.
Another former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad is also contesting from Anantnag Lok Sabha seat. PDP has decided to field youth leader Mohammad Waheed Para from Srinagar and Bayaz Ahmed Bhat from Baramulla. National Conference has decided to field Mian Altaf from Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat.
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