The Parliamentary Board of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, the highest decision-making body, Tuesday finalized the proposal to field party candidates on all three seats of Kashmir valley leaving no scope for the Peoples Democratic Party to contest in alliance from at least one Lok Sabha seat of Anantnag-Rajouri.
The Parliamentary board also deliberated on the names of probable candidates likely to be fielded on all three Lok Sabha seats of Srinagar, Baramulla, and Anantnag-Rajouri.
Due to health reasons, Dr Farooq Abdullah may avoid contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. In his place, Omar Abdullah is most likely to throw his hat in the poll arena to return to the Lok Sabha.
The decision of the National Conference Parliamentary Board now leaves no scope for the Peoples Democratic Party to enter into any negotiations at all.
PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti is now expected to take a final call on fielding party candidates in consultation with the chairman of the PDP parliamentary board separately.
Briefing media persons informally about the deliberations, a senior National Conference leader told reporters in Srinagar that the Parliamentary board of the party today decided to go ahead with the proposal to contest all three seats of Kashmir valley while talks were still on with the Congress party to approve the seat-sharing formula on two Lok Sabha seats of Jammu region and one of Ladakh.
Efforts made to reach out to the official spokesman of the party Tanvir Sadiq could not materialize. The party spokesman had not released any formal statement till late evening.
The Party President Dr Farooq Abdullah, former Chief Minister and Vice President Omar Abdullah attended the Parliamentary board meeting along with Provincial chiefs of Jammu and Kashmir province and senior members of the party.