In a sudden shift in his stand a day ahead of counting of votes of the assembly polls, the National Conference (NC) president Dr. Farooq Abdullah on Monday said that his party will accept support from the PDP of Mehbooba Mufti even if we don’t need it to form the government in Jammu and Kashmir. He was reacting to reports in the morning that Mehbooba was ready to support a non-BJP government in the UT.
However, the scenario took a turn by afternoon when Mehbooba’s daughter, Iltija Mufti, wrote on X; “Unnecessary speculations. Let me put the record straight. PDP’s senior leadership will take a call on extending support to a secular front only once the results are out. This is our official stand”.
Interestingly, NC vice-president Omar Abdullah also expressed views contrary to his father Farooq Abdullah’s statement by saying; “They haven’t extended support, they haven’t offered support and we don’t know what the voters have decided yet, so I really wish we could put a lid on all this premature speculation for the next 24 hours”.
It is worth mentioning that being a member of the INDIA bloc, PDP was kept out of seat sharing in the recently held general and assembly elections by the NC. Not a single Lok Sabha seat was spared for Mehbooba to contest. The party has also to contest the assembly elections without any seat sharing with the INDIA bloc.
Dr. Abdullah said that we have to sit together if we want to save J&K. We have to bring it out of the storm in which it was trapped in the last ten years. He was hopeful that the NC-Congress alliance would form a stable government.
Reacting to Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) chief, Engineer Rashid’s advice to the mainstream regional parties not to form a government in J&K until the statehood was restored, Omar Abdullah wrote on X; “The man goes to Delhi for 24 hours and comes back to play straight into the hands of BJP. The BJP would like nothing more than to extend central rule in J&K if they aren’t in a position to form a government”.
Meanwhile, a controversy has erupted over the reports that the Lt. Governor Manij Sinha will nominate five members to the Assembly before formation of the government in J&K. The Congress, NC, PDP and CPI(M) have called it an assault on democracy. An unauthenticated list of five persons being “nominated” was in circulation on social media.
J&K BJP president Ravinder Raina said he was confident that the BJP will win about 35 seats and will be in a position to form the government with the support of smaller parties and independent candidates.
It is worth mentioning that counting of votes will begin on Tuesday morning at 8 am across Jammu and Kashmir where the assembly election was held in three phases. The overall polling percentage in the three phases was 63.88. The phase-wise polling percentage was 61.38, 57.31 and 69.69 in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd phase respectively.