In a defiant note, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday announced that her party will contest all the three Lok Sabha seats of the Kashmir Valley.
In a hurriedly convened press conference in Srinagar, she said the INDIA bloc partner — National Conference (NC) — has left her party People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with no other option.
The NC had unilaterally announced that it would field its candidates on all the three seats and fielded Mian Altaf from Anantnag. The NC had left two seats in Jammu for the Congress as part of the INDIA bloc’s seat-sharing agreement.
“They (NC) have left no option for us other than to field candidates and contest the election,” Mehbooba said, adding that the party’s parliamentary board would take a final call on the candidates.
Mehbooba added that the decision on contesting the two Lok Sabha seats of Jammu will be taken in consultation with the Congress as the “INDIA bloc still exists although the PAGD that was the last hope of the people of J&K has been broken by the NC”.
“What harm the BJP could not do to the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), our own member (NC) has done it,” she said.
The former chief minister said although she had authorized NC chief Farooq Abdullah to decide the issue of seat sharing, he unilaterally announced the NC’s decision to contest all three seats of Kashmir without taking her into confidence.
Countering Omar Abdullah’s claim that the PDP has no right to contest the election as the party lost all the three seats in the 2019 polls, Mehbooba said such a criteria was unjustified as the National Conference leaders had lost all the three seats in 2014. Moreover, Farooq lost the election, while Omar lost the assembly election from Ganderbal, she added.
Mehbooba’s announcement came hours after Omar slammed media for “attempting to create a wedge” between the INDIA bloc parties- NC and PDP- on his aprty’s announcement of Mian Altaf’s candidature from Anantnag.
Asked if the NC was contesting all the three Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir under the pressure of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Omar clarified that the decision is solely on the basis of having won the previous election.
An agitated Farooq also hit back at media on the matter and said, “Who has told you that they (PDP) are disappointed? We are standing united and nobody can break the INDIA alliance.”