The rift happened after the alliance failed to reach a consensus over seat sharing for the elections to the Upper House of Parliament. Jammu and Kashmir will send four MPs to the Rajya Sabha, and the Congress has been offered seat number 4 to contest, which the party said would be ‘futile’.
The Congress has six seats in the 88-member Assembly, and it has refused to back the NC’s proposal to jointly contest all four Rajya Sabha seats scheduled for election on October 24. The NC, which commands 41 MLAs and the support of five Independents and one CPI(M) legislator, had offered the Congress one seat, the fourth, but the Congress rejected the proposal, calling it “unviable.”
“We unanimously decided not to field our candidate for seat number four, since the safe seats that we had sought — Nos. 1 and 2 — were not offered,” Pradesh Congress Committee chief Tariq Hameed Karra said. He added that contesting the fourth seat would be “futile” given the alliance’s numbers.
The NC has named candidates for all four seats. They are Chowdhary Mohammad Ramzan, Shammi Oberoi, Sajad Kitchloo, and Imran Nabi Dar.
Chief Minister and NC’s Vice President Omar Abdullah has downplayed the rift. He said, “They have decided not to field a candidate. We felt that the best chance of winning that seat was with the Congress, and they felt otherwise. So be it.”
Even if Congress leaves the alliance, the NC enjoys a majority in the House. The NC has 41 MLAs, supported by four Independents and a CPI(M) member, above the halfway mark of 45.
