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Srinagar, Oct 12 (IANS) Jammu and Kashmir Congress president Tariq Hameed Karra on Sunday said the party has decided not to contest the Rajya Sabha seat given by the ruling National Conference (NC).
After a marathon meeting of party leaders including Tariq Hameed Karra, GA Mir, Raman Bhalla, Choudhary Lal Singh and others, Jammu and Kashmir Congress decided that it will not contest the Rajya Sabha elections on the ‘risky’ seat given by the NC.
Addressing a press conference after the meeting of its leaders in Srinagar, Tariq Hameed Karra told reporters that the party has decided not to contest the elections on the fourth seat given to him.
He said, “There was a detailed discussion regarding the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections. The unanimous opinion among the members was that our central leadership had demanded a safe seat – either seat number 1 or 2. However, the National Conference offered us seat number 4, which is comparatively less safe. In view of the circumstances, it was unanimously decided that we will not field a candidate for seat number 4 and leave the decision to our alliance partners (NC). Will give.”
The Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee president also said that the party has conveyed its position to the NC leadership.
He said, “We had officially written a letter to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah regarding our viewpoint. He asked us to forward the letter to Farooq Abdullah, which we did. We have not received any response yet.”
He said Congress members expressed displeasure and unhappiness over governance, development issues and the absence of a coordination committee among the alliance partners.
It must be remembered that most of the Congress leaders who spoke during today’s meeting at the Congress headquarters had expressed the view that the party should pull out of the alliance with the NC.
While the NC announced three party candidates for the three ‘safe’ Rajya Sabha seats, it had offered the fourth seat to the Congress to contest.
BJP has made Jammu and Kashmir Party President Sat Sharma its candidate for the fourth Rajya Sabha seat. While the NC-Congress alliance has a lead on three seats, the BJP has a clear lead on the fourth 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 as Jammu and Kashmir did not have a legislative assembly after February 2022.
In the 90-member assembly, the NC-Congress alliance has 53 seats while the BJP has 28 seats.
Of the 53 seats in the alliance, Congress has 6 seats and the party has extended outside support to the NC government.
–IANS
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