Safe seat or nothing: Congress bows out

Srinagar, Oct 12: After a marathon meeting that went on for several hours at the Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) headquarters here, which saw the party’s top J&K brass get into a huddle, Congress announced skipping participation in the forthcoming polls meant to elect four Rajya Sabha members from J&K, scheduled to be held on October 24.

Addressing mediapersons, JKPCC President Tariq Hameed Karra said the Congress’ local leadership was upset over the refusal of its alliance partner in the J&K government, the National Conference (NC), to let the former contest on a “safe seat” for the Rajya Sabha polls.

However, as widely speculated, Karra did not mention anything about the Congress' withdrawal of support from the NC government.

He made it clear that after Congress’ decision to skip the polls for Rajya Sabha members, the ball was now in the court of the NC leadership to take a further call.

“We had a marathon discussion, which saw participation of the core leadership deliberating on whether we should take part in the Rajya Sabha polls. Our senior leadership had reached out to the NC to seek seat number one or two, which is a safe seat. The NC offered us seat number four, which is riskier, ” he said.

Notably, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) holds an advantageous position over the fourth seat.

Against the alliance’s 24 second-preference votes, the BJP has 28 votes.

Meanwhile, the discussions and opinions Congress leadership has gathered from its cadre will be forwarded to the central leadership, Karra said.

“In today’s meeting, I had to put on record the deliberations that took place between us and the NC. While there are a number of concerns, such as why there was no coordination committee between NC and Congress, that were discussed today, the core agenda of the meeting was the Rajya Sabha polls,” he said.

“It was unanimously decided that for seat number four, we will not contest as this is an unsafe seat,” Karra said.

The JKPCC President said a letter had gone from CLP leader Ghulam Ahmad Mir and from his side to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah mentioning Congress’ opinion over allocation of a safe seat to contest on.  “This letter has been forwarded to NC President Farooq Abdullah Sahab as well,” Karra said.

He said as far as the Assembly by-polls for Budgam and Nagrota seats were concerned, Congress “will open the channel of talks with NC soon.”

Meanwhile, a Congress spokesman said that earlier, during the marathon meeting of the core committee of prominent Congress leaders from J&K, the party leaders discussed threadbare the experience of the overall working of a year of the Congress-NC coalition.

He said that during the meeting, the by-elections to the two vacant assembly seats – Nagrota and Budgam, also came up under discussion.

“The participants freely expressed their views on the working of the coalition and the adherence to the coalition dharma by the coalition partners. A number of participants, including MLAs, expressed their strong views and reservations on the non-mitigation of the public issues, including contentious political, administrative, and developmental issues,” the Congress spokesman said.

He said that it had been decided to convey to the central leadership the views expressed by all the members representing the sentiments of the Congress cadres relating to the people.

“The meeting expressed dismay over the unilateral announcement of the senior coalition partner – NC of the party’s three candidates and offering a fourth seat to the Congress party, despite an assurance to the top leadership of Congress of leaving a secure seat to our party.  The meeting expressed surprise as to under what circumstances or pressures the NC leadership took a U-turn from their earlier commitment,” the spokesman said. “During the meeting, the Congress leadership said that the ‘unsafe seat’ was not acceptable to the Congress party.”

He said that in view of the situation, it was unanimously decided not to field its candidate on the “unsafe seat”.

The spokesman said that on the issue of by-elections to the two Assembly seats of Nagrota and Budgam, the party decided to hold further deliberations with the NC for a final decision soon.

AICC General Secretary and Congress Legislature Party leader Ghulam Ahmad Mir, Working President Raman Bhalla, former J&KPCC President Peerzada Sayeed, Mula Ram, Chaudhary Lal Singh, all six MLAs, and other prominent leaders from Jammu as well as Kashmir attended the meeting.