Alliance parties in blame-game over DDC poll defeat

Gupkar leadership has not taken any action against those who defied the party diktat and fought the elections as Independents

FIYAZ AHMAD MIR, MP and senior PDP leader

SRINAGAR: People’s Alliance for Group Declaration (PAGD) constituents may have been trying to show unity among themselves, but all is not well in this alliance. After losing the District Development Council seats in some districts of Kashmir, the leaders of these parties are churning and accusing each other.

Two senior People’s Conference (PC) leaders, Imran Reza Ansari (party general secretary) and Abdul Gani Vakil (vicepresident), and senior PDP leader and MP Fiyaz Ahmad Mir have raised questions over the PAGD leadership for not taking any action against those who defied the alliance diktak and contested as independent candidates, many of whom won by defeating the official PAGD candidates.

Mir alleged that the National Conference (NC) had fielded candidates against the one from PDP in many places despite the alliance, because of which he faced defeat.

“I will be revealing all details later,” he said.

Ansari recently wrote a letter to PC chairman Sajjad Lone telling him that they were being questioned by their workers and people about proxy candidates fielded by the NC.

Similar allegations were raised by Vakil, who blamed the other alliance parties for failing to take action against the defecting leaders.

Post-DDC elections, NC leader Bashaarat Bukhari had also sought the roadmap from the top alliance leadership.

“Senior leaders should desist from expressing grievances publicly. The best forum to discuss any issues grievances is the one within the party. The dividing line between airing grievances publicly and indiscipline is very thin,” tweeted PC from its official handle.

Sources within the PAGD said after winning more than 110 DDC seats (mostly by NC), the Gupkar alliance, which is headed by Farooq Abdullah, hasn’t held any meeting.

The leadership is yet to finalise a strategy to select candidates for the posts of president and vice-president in the DDCs where the PAGD has bagged majority.

In the eight-phase DDC elections — the first such exercise in J&K and also the first major voting in the region since the Article 370 move on August 5, 2019 — the PAGD, a two-monthold bloc which includes regional powerhouses NC and PDP, took the pole position by bagging an impressive 110 seats of the total 280 on offer across the union territory’s 20 districts (14 seats each).