Soon after the Congress announced its decision to contest the panchayat and local body elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the People’s Democratic Party on Thursday accused it (Congress) of having “always viciously engineered a plot against sentiments of people”.

The PDP, which was expecting the Congress to follow in their footsteps and boycott these elections, mounted an attack on the Congress in a series of tweets on Thursday morning.

In an apparent bid to strike a chord with the separatists, the PDP tweeted: “PDP’s decision to stay away from the ULB/Panchayat polls was strongly based on a reason to respect sentiments of people and to ensure that there are no further killings on the ground”.

PDP’s decision to stay away from the ULB/Panchayat polls was strongly based on a reason to respect sentiments of people and to ensure that there are no further killings on ground. https://t.co/WFEXTWeHBN

— J&K PDP (@jkpdp) September 20, 2018

“Congress has been the architect of erosion of J&K’s autonomy & they have always viciously engineered a plot against sentiments of people. Its participation is shameful & at the same time surprising and goes against the will of the people: Chief Spokesperson @Rafiahmadmir”, the party said in another tweet from the official handle.

However, the PDP received critical reactions to its tweets with one of its followers alleging: “And your alliance with BJP was a sellout of Kashmir’s integrity.”

The J&K PCC chief GA Mir had on Wednesday announced the party’s decision to participate in the elections to stop “communal forces” from occupying the grassroots democratic institutions. The decision to contest the elections has come after deliberations at various levels and also after consulting the Congress high command.

With this, it will be for the first time in J&K that it will be a direct fight between the Congress and the BJP.

The elections for two municipal corporations, three municipal councils and 72 municipal committees will be held on party lines, whereas that for the 35,096 seats of panches and 4490 slots of sarpanch will not be on party basis.

Following the poll boycott diktat of pro-Pakistan separatists, the PDP, National Conference, Awamni NC, CPI(M) and various other Kashmir-based splinter groups have announced their decision to not participate in these elections.

Top separatist leader Syed Alishah Geelani, who is said to be under house arrest, is keeping the pot boiling by freely holding meetings of anti-election elements and also issuing statements against participation in these polls that will begin on 8 October.

Mir said the Congress would contest the elections with a rider of monitoring the situation in the Valley and might review its decision if the situation worsened. “We don’t want the communal forces to occupy the democratic units at the village level”, he said.

Mir said not contesting the elections would have kept the field wide open for the BJP to capture without any contest.

He said that safety of candidates would be the sole responsibility of the government that announced the elections without taking into account the ground situation.