Cong to strengthen secular forces: Baramulla candidate

Ehsan Fazili

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 25

The Congress, which has stitched up an alliance with the NC for the six Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, will focus on strengthening the secular forces and fight against the “communal forces” in the country.

Congress candidate Haji Farooq Ahmad Mir, who filed his papers from the Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency on the last day of the nominations on Monday, said the party’s focus in the election campaign would be to make the secular forces strong and weaken the communal forces.

After filing the papers, Mir highlighted the party’s developmental programmes across the country during the two successive UPA governments between 2004 and 2014.

This is Mir’s maiden attempt to contest the Lok Sabha elections. He had unsuccessfully contested the Assembly elections from the Lolab constituency of Kupwara district as the Congress candidate in 2014.

The Congress and the NC would have a “friendly contest” in the Baramulla and Anantnag constituencies.

The Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency is going tothe polls in the first phase on April 11.

14 file nominations, scrutiny today

• Ten candidates of the total 14 filed papers from the Baramulla constituency on the last day on Monday
• These were Haji Farooq Ahmad Mir (Congress); Mohammed Maqbool War (BJP); Jahangir Khan (Panthers Party); Syed Najeeb Shah Naqvi, Abdul Rasheed Shaheen, Javeed Ahmad Qureshi, Abdul Rasheed Shiekh, Syed Muzaffar Ali, Mohammad Abdullah Chatwal and Abdul Majeed Bhat ( all Independent candidates)
• n Earlier, Raja Aijaz Ali and Syed Aamir Sohail (Independents); Abdul Quyoom Wani (PDP); and Mohammad Akbar Lone (NC) had filled their nominations

Come clean on pact with Congress: Rasheed to NC

Srinagar, March 25

Awami  Ittehad Party (AIP) president Engineer Rasheed on Monday asked the National  Conference (NC)  to come clean on its alliance with the Congress. Rasheed said this after filing papers for the Baramulla parliamentary seat. 

He said the National  Conference had been following “double standards” since 1947.  “So-called secular forces seem to be having just one agenda to grab power and play with the sentiments and emotions of Kashmiris. While (National  Conference  president) Farooq Abdullah talks day and night of supporting the Congress, NC candidate Mohammad Akbar Lone calls the Congress more  evil and harmful than the BJP. Both the parties need to tell the truth about their agenda of exploitation and vote-grabbing politics,” Rasheed said. — TNS