Cong announces decision to contest 87 Assembly seats in State on its own
Setting the stage for a multi-corner contest in the 2014 Assembly polls in Jammu & Kashmir, the Congress on Sunday announced its decision to dump long-time ally National Conference and contest 87 Assembly seats on its own. However, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah claimed he had dumped the Congress ten days ago.
There will be no immediate fallout of the political development in the State as the alliance partners want to remain glued to their seats and complete the existing term in office.
Flanked by leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, State PCC chief Professor Saif Ud Din Soz and AICC secretary in-charge J&K affairs Main-Ul-Haq, AICC general secretary Ambika Soni made public this decision a day after attending a workers’ convention in Jammu on Saturday.
“After extensive talks with Congress leaders and workers at all levels, the party has come to the conclusion that we are going to fight the forthcoming Assembly elections on our own strength,” Soni told reporters.
“We will put up candidates or support some of the traditional alliance candidates on all the 87 seats in J&K alone,” she said. Reacting promptly to the announcement, Omar tweeted: “I met Mrs Gandhi (Sonia) ten days ago & thanked her for all her support. I conveyed NC’s decision to fight the elections alone.”
Terming the Congress announcement of a split distortion of the facts, Omar said: “For it to be spun now as a Congress decision is wrong & a complete distortion of the facts, not surprising but incorrect nonetheless.”
Omar further tweeted: “I explained the reasons and also told her I wouldn’t be making a public announcement because I didn’t want it to look opportunistic.” Ignoring strong sentiments of its party workers the faction ridden Congress however, shied away from naming its Chief Ministerial candidate to lead an effective poll campaign.
The party also decided to go to the electorate to fulfill its agenda of delivering ‘good governance’ and ‘corruption free’ administration.
Interestingly, the Congress made public its decision five days after the National Conference released its first list of 32 candidates for the forthcoming Assembly polls on July 15.
The Congress High Command was under pressure to take a final call on forming any pre-poll alliance ahead of the Assembly polls.
In closed-door meetings and brainstorming sessions held to take stock of the prevailing political situation, the Congress workers at all levels had expressed their desire to go it alone in the Assembly polls, while accusing the National Conference of according step-motherly treatment to Congress workers and junior ministers.
The alliance partners had recently tasted defeat on all six lok Sabha seats in the State with the BJP winning three seats, two from Jammu and one from ladakh region and the PDP sweeping the three seats in Kashmir Valley.
Addressing a Press conference in Jammu, the senior Congress leaders clarified that in the coming months all efforts would be made to establish rapport with workers of the party and boost their morale to work for securing a clear mandate in favour of the party. The party leaders also announced that separate day-long conventions would be organised at district level in the coming weeks to gather feedback on party candidates before announcing their names.
Reacting to the queries of reporters Ambika Soni said in the recently-held lok Sabha polls where the alliance partners contested jointly, the desired vote transfer could not take place. “In Assembly elections now we don’t want to run the risk of losing votes,” she added.
Azad said the party wants to emerge as the single-largest party in the State to achieve its target of winning 44 plus seats. He said the new Government would focus on completing pending projects in the State.
Soz made desperate efforts to list the achievements of the Congress when it was in power. He said: “We fought for incorporating provisions of the 73rd and 74th amendment into the State Panchayati Raj Act, for setting up of administrative units in all three regions of the State. We are committed to address the issue of west Pak and POK refugees, we want to generate more employment for the youth and provide good, responsible and effective Government to the masses.”