NC, Cong seal pact in J&K: ‘Friendly contest’ for 3 seats

Dinesh Manhotra & Amit Khajuria
Tribune News Service
Jammu, March 20

After hectic parleys, the National Conference and the Congress today announced a seat-sharing deal for three of the six Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir.

  Both the parties will have “friendly contests” in the constituencies of Baramulla and Anantnag in Kashmir Valley and the lone Ladakh seat.  While the NC will support Congress in Udhampur-Doda and Jammu-Poonch seats, the latter will support NC for the Srinagar seat, where Farooq Abdullah will be the coalition candidate.

Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said, “We have entered into an alliance to strengthen secular forces in J&K. Friendly contests means that there will be no cut-throat contest between coalition partners. We will ensure that only coalition candidates will emerge victorious.”

The NC has already announced the candidates for the three parliamentary constituencies of Kashmir valley. Farooq Abdullah will contest from Srinagar, Akbar Lone from Baramulla and Justice (retired) Hasnain Masoodi from Anantnag.

Though the Congress has not officially announced any candidate, the name of royal scion Vikramaditya Singh has already been cleared for Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha seat to challenge the sitting MP and MoS in PMO, Jitendra Singh of BJP.

The NC and Congress had contested three seats each in  the 2014 election, but both failed to open their account with the BJP and PDP winning three seats each.