LOK SABHA POLLS: NC announces candidates for Sgr, B’la seats

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NC 4
Srinagar: National Conference President Farooq Abdullah long with his son and party vice-president Omar Abdullah chairing a Parliamentary Board meeting of J&K National Conference ahead of Lok Sabha elections, at Party Headquarters in Srinagar on Monday, March 18, 2019. PTI Photo by Umar Ganie

Srinagar, Mar 18: The stand-off over pre-poll alliance between National Conference (NC) and Congress for upcoming Lok Sabha election continues as consensus over seat sharing is yet to evolve between the two parties.

Sources claim that NC, which received a pre-poll alliance proposal from Congress high-command, had offered two seats from Jammu province to its former coalition partner.

However, Congress had not agreed to the condition set by the NC as its president G A Mir will be contesting from the Anantnag seat.

A meeting by NC parliamentary board led by the party president Farooq Abdullah was convened on Monday in which deliberations regarding candidature and pre-poll alliance were held.

Sources said while the candidates for Baramulla and Srinagar seat have been finalised, majority of the leaders favoured the party’s own candidate from the Anantnag seat rather than offering the seat to Congress.

“It was decided that Farooq Abdullah and Mohammad Akbar Lone will contest from Srinagar and Baramulla parliamentary seats respectively. Many leaders in the meeting objected to the idea of handing over the Anantnag seat to Congress,” sources said.

“The leaders said that Peer Mohammad Hussain who earlier has been the constituency’s representative in 2009 has done enough ground work. So majority of the party members favoured his nomination from the Anantnag seat as it will strengthen party’s base in the constituency,” they said.

Sources said the party will announced its candidature and pre-poll alliance for upcoming parliamentary elections on Tuesday after another meeting of core group.

“The parliamentary board will resume its meeting at 10 am at Tuesday to take final call on candidates for rest of the four constituencies,” they said.
Meanwhile NC General Secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar confirmed that candidates for Srinagar and Baramulla seat have been finalized.

“There was exchange of ideas between members. So far there has not been any conclusion about pre-poll alliance but two candidates have been finalized as Dr Farooq Abdullah for Srinagar and Mohammad Akbar Lone for Baramulla. The candidature for Anantnag seat is under discussion,” he said.

National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah Sunday said his party was open to a pre-poll alliance with the Congress for Lok Sabha polls in Jammu and Kashmir if his party was offered to contest three seats in the valley.

Meanwhile, the state unit of Congress has forwarded the complete list of shortlist candidates for all the seats from the state to high command for final selection.

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