J&K polls: Cong's ‘hypocrisy’ jab at BJP for questioning its alliance with National Conference

Congress general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala on Sunday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), accusing it of hypocrisy for questioning his party's pre-poll alliance with Farooq Abdullah-led National Conference (NC) for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir elections.

"Have we ever asked the BJP whom they will ally with? Then why is the BJP questioning us? Had the BJP not allied with the National Conference or PDP in the past? They did. When you have done this before, why are you questioning us about our alliance?" ANI quoted the Rajya Sabha MP as saying.

Surjewala's remarks come after several BJP leaders including Union home minister Amit Shah slammed the grand old party for its alliance with the NC. “The Congress party, which has repeatedly risked the nation’s unity and security to satiate its greed for power, has once again exposed its ulterior motives by allying with the Abdullah family's 'National Conference' in the Jammu and Kashmir elections,” the minister had said on X.

BJP's alliances with PDP, NC in past

Jammu and Kashmir last witnessed an election back in 2014. After the results sprung a hung assembly, the BJP and Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's People's Democratic Party (PDP), two parties ideologically poles apart, formed an alliance to govern the erstwhile state. After Sayeed's death in 2016, his daughter Mehbooba Mufti succeeded him as chief minister. 

The alliance between the two parties broke in 2018 after the BJP pulled out support from Mufti's government. After the collapse of the BJP-PDP government, J&K was put under governor's rule for six months. 

The then governor Satyapal Malik on November 21 that year dissolved the legislative assembly. In 2019, the Narendra Modi government abrogated the Article 370, thereby ending special status to J&K and bifurcating it into a Union territory. 

On the other hand, National Conference was an ally of the BJP when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sworn in as prime minister for third time in September-October 1999. However, Farooq Abdullah had said that being in NDA even after the 2002 Gujarat riots was a “mistake”.

(With agency inputs)