Analysis | Looming end for PAGD ?

Srinagar, Mar 9: The Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration ( PAGD) appears to be on death bed as National Conference (NC) and People's Democratic Party( PDP), the principal constituents of the alliance traded barbs over the seat sharing agreement with the grand old party announcing to contest all three Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir.

The political analysts have billed the development as "a normal move in post-ideological era".

On Friday, the NC vice President Omar Abdullah made it clear that the alliance would not leave a seat for PDP, citing the parties dismal performance in the previous Lok Sabha election. The PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, on the other hand, upbraided the alliance partner for taking a unilateral decision and "reducing the PAGD to a joke".The party is eyeing on the Anantnag-Rajouri parliament seat and was expecting the NC to vacate the seat for it.

Although both the NC and the PDP are the part of national I.N.D.I.A alliance, the PAGD is more crucial for all its six constituents, NC, PDP, CPI(M), CPI and ANC, given its regional significance. The recent statements of the NC and the PDP have nearly precipitated an end to 4 year and 5- month-old alliance, which was originally formed to safeguard the special constitutional position of Jammu and Kashmir.

The alliance has been struggling to sustain for a while now with both the parties caught in throes of controversies, stemming from the political statements. The political bickering started from the lower and middle rung leaders of the PDP, racking up 1987 election riggings.

The PDP youth leader Waheed ur Rehman Parra on the 24th foundation day of the party criticised the NC for boiling down its demands to elections only while blaming the party for creating Ikhwan, a government backed militia. The JKNC leaders, on the other hand, slammed the PDP for facilitating BJP's entry into the Valley.

On Friday, even Abdullah said that the PDP had dragged them into Pakistan elections, drawing an analogy with the 1987 polls. Apart from the political bickering between the NC and the PDP, the two key constituents have not been meeting their eyes for long.

"Both of them hardly showed any strong will to take the alliance forward", said a PAGD leader. The PAGD has issued its last statement on November 23, 2023, deploring the Rajouri terror attack. " Since then it has slipped into hibernation", said the leader.

The alliance partners, however, were able to paper over their differences during the last few years, but the seat-sharing process for the upcoming LoK sabha elections has starkly exposed the fault lines between them .

" In post-ideological era, political parties are more concerned about their electoral interests than the ideologies", said a political analyst, who declined to be quoted by his name.The NC spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar said that the party's decision about seat-sharing was based on the performance of 2019 election results. He, however, said that the PDP should not exit from the alliance as the alliance had a bigger role than elections.

He also said that the candidates would be announced within five days. Sources within the PDP said that the Congress party was in touch with the JKNC prodding the leadership into leaving Anantnag seat for PDP. However, a PDP leader said that there is no space for the party in the PAGD.