J&K Congress decides not to field candidate for RS seat offered to it by NC

Srinagar, Oct 12 (IANS) Jammu and Kashmir Congress president Tariq Hameed Karra said on Sunday that the party has decided not to contest on the Rajya Sabha seat offered to it by the ruling National Conference (NC). 

After a marathon meeting of party leaders including Tariq Hameed Karra, G.A. Mir, Raman Bhalla, Choudhary Lal Singh and others, the Jammu and Kashmir Congress decided that it will not contest the Rajya Sabha polls on the 'risky' seat offered to it by the NC.

Addressing a press conference after the meeting of its leaders here on Srinagar, Tariq Hameed Karra told reporters that the party has decided not to contest the fourth seat offered to them.

“A threadbare discussion was held regarding the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections. The unanimous view among members was that our central leadership had sought a safer seat -- either seat number 1 or 2. However, the National Conference offered us seat number 4, which is comparatively less safe. Given the circumstances, it was unanimously decided that we will not field a candidate for seat number 4 and will leave the decision to our alliance partners (NC)," he said.

The Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress committee president also said that the party has conveyed its position to the NC leadership.

“We officially wrote a letter to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah regarding our viewpoint. He asked us to forward the letter to Farooq Abdullah, which we have done. We have not received any response yet," he said.

He said that Congress members expressed resentment and unhappiness over governance, development issues, and the absence of a coordination committee among alliance partners.

It must be recalled that the majority of Congress leaders who spoke during today’s meeting at the Congress headquarters had expressed the view that the party must pull out of the alliance with the NC.

While NC announced three party candidates for the three ‘safe’ Rajya Sabha seats it had offered the 4th seat to the Congress to contest.

The BJP has nominated its Jammu and Kashmir party president, Sat Sharma as its candidate for the 4th Rajya Sabha seat. While the NC-Congress alliance has edge on the three seats, the BJP has clear edge on the 4th seat with 28 votes while the alliance has only 24 votes on this seat.

The election commission announced Rajya Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir on September 24 after more than four years since Jammu and Kashmir did not have a legislative assembly after February 2022.

In the 90-member legislative Assembly, the NC-Congress alliance has 53 seats while the BJP has 28 seats.

Among the 53 seats of the alliance, Congress has 6 seats and the party has extended support to the NC government from outside.

--IANS

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