Alliance partners National Conference (NC) and Congress finalised a seat-sharing arrangement for the J&K assembly elections after resolving differences, announcing that the two parties will field candidates in 83 out of the 90 seats, leaving room for “friendly contests” in five constituencies.
NC will contest 51 seats and Congress 32, while one seat each has been left for INDIA partners CPM and J&K National Panthers Party.
“There will be friendly contests on five seats in a cordial and disciplined manner,” J&K Congress chief Tariq Hameed Karra said. However, the alliance did not identify the constituencies allocated to each party.
BJP releases list of 44, prunes it to 15 after protests
BJP’s campaign for J&K elections got off to an awkward start with the party having to prune the list of its candidates after protests over selections and omissions.
The party had released a list of 44 candidate, but withdrew it after a few minutes to come out with a shortened list of 15 names only for the seats which go to polls first in the three-phase polls on Sep 18.
Soon, protests erupted over the absence of key names like those of state BJP chief Ravinder Raina, former deputy CM Nirmal Singh, former speaker Kavinder Gupta and Sat Paul Sharma, also a former state president, who had won in 2014 from Jammu West seat, leading to retracing of steps.
In the now-withdrawn list, Satish Sharma was named the candidate for Jammu’s Billawar constituency in place of Nirmal Singh who had won the seat in 2014. Similarly, the withdrawn list had Narender Singh Rana as the candidate for RS Pora-Jammu South (it was called Gandhi Nagar before delimitation) in place of Kavinder Gupta, who won the seat in 2014 defeating Congress’s Raman Bhalla.
The list also had Arvind Gupta in place of Sat Paul Sharma from Jammu West. State chief Raina had won from Nowshera in Rajouri district in 2014 but was not retained in the seat, though sources said he might be fielded from one of the Jammu seats.
Among the new entrants who figured in the withdrawn list were Devender Singh Rana, former National Conference (NC) leader and brother of Union minister of state Jitendra Singh; ex-Congress minister Shyam Lal Sharma; and former NC minister S S Salathia.
The withdrawn list had Rana as BJP candidate from Nagrota in Jammu, a seat he won in 2014 on the NC ticket; Sharma from Jammu North; and Salathia from Samba.
“The previous list was released by mistake as a few rounds of discussions are yet to take place. Moreover, the list will be released phase-wise, which has been the practice the party has followed,” a BJP functionary said.
