Assembly polls in J&K: Congress to approach India bloc parties for forging tie-up
In the Lok Sabha elections, Congress and National Conference had forged an alliance on five seats of J&K with the National Conference contested from three seats of Kashmir and the Congress contested from Jammu and Udhampur seats.
Congress will be approaching parties of the India alliance in J&K for forging a tie-up ahead of the assembly elections that could be held in next couple of months.
In the Lok Sabha elections, Congress and National Conference had forged an alliance on five seats of J&K with the National Conference contested from three seats of Kashmir and the Congress contested from Jammu and Udhampur seats. The PDP which is also part of the India alliance contested from three Kashmir seats. While NC bagged two seats Srinagar and Anantnag Rajouri Lok Sabha seats. Now Congress is again trying to bring all the opposition parties under a single platform. “We will try to get all opposition parties and India Alliance partners on one platform to defeat the BJP,” said Congress CWC member and former J&K president Ghulam Ahmad Mir.
He said the basic meeting point for all the secular parties should be statehood to J&K. “The political parties which are fighting for statehood should come with us so a joint strategy will be adopted for the upcoming assembly polls in the UT,” he said.
Mir said that in coming days the party will contact all the political parties in J&K. “We will try to forge the alliance of like-minded parties and it’s up to political parties whether they will become part of alliance or not.”
Though dates for assembly polls haven’t been announced but political parties are holding meetings and conventions to ready their cadres for the elections which will be held after 10 years. The last assembly election in J&K was held in 2014 and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) emerged as the single largest party.
Only last week, CPI(M) general secretary Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami had issued a statement saying that NC president Farooq Abdullah will be chairing a meeting of all parties except BJP on August 7, however, two days later the meeting was cancelled without citing any reasons. Congress also held a high-level meeting to discuss strategy about the upcoming polls.
