Beg resigns from NC, backs Mufti
Srinagar: In a major jolt to ruling National Conference
ahead of the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly elections, top leader Mehboob Beg quit the party and extended unconditional support to PDP rival Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
Six months after it lost power, the Congress is apparently utilising the 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Jawaharlal Nehru to rally all non- BJP, non- NDA parties together under the plank of secularism.
A two- day international conference is being organised here from Monday to highlight the legacy and world view of the country’s first Prime Minister and will be attended by a host of international lead- ers and representatives of various political parties from India and abroad.
A major feature of the meet is that the who’s who of anti- BJP politics has been invited and Prime Minister Narendra Modi or any other leader from the BJP or from its allies have been left out.
The parties, whose leaders have been invited include all Left parties, JD( U), RJD, JD( S), Samajwadi Party, Trinamul Congress and others “who believe in the idea of India” as espoused by Nehru, as a Congress leader puts it. West Bengal chief minister and Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee left for New Delhi from Kolkata to attend the conference. According to an agency report, she abandoned a plan to attend the closing ceremony of the Kolkata International Film Festival on Monday to make herself available in the national capital.
Ms Banerjee’s first visit to New Delhi after the LS elections generated feverish speculation in the political circle about a possible tie- up with the Congress ahead of the Assembly elections in 2016. While the BJP has been alleging that the decision to not invite the Prime Minister reflected the narrow- mindedness of the Congress and is a disrespect to the nation, the Congress is justifying it.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi had last week formally invited NCP chief Sharad Pawar for the event but the party now seems to be in two minds after the NCP supported the BJP government in the trust vote in Maharashtra.