Farooq: Open to tie up with Cong, PDP to form J-K govt
LUCKNOW:In view of the possibility of dissolution of the Jammu and Kashmir assembly, National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah on Saturday said he was willing to sit down with the Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for government formation in the interest of the people of the state.
J and K was put under the governor’s rule on June 19, 2018 after the BJP pulled out of the coalition with the PDP. But, the state assembly was placed in suspended animation, leaving doors open for new government formation.
“Together we have 57 MLAs in the assembly. But first I will have to discuss this with my party members. Now that the issue has been raised here, I will initiate the discussions immediately after my return to the state” said the former J&K CM responding to a question on the possibility of an alliance. He was in conversation with former chief information commissioner of India Wajahat Habibullah at a function in state capital on Saturday.
At national level, Abdullah said he was willing to work for a greater alliance of all non-BJP parties and had already held talks with Telugu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu in Tamil Nadu. Responding to a question that there was no national level
leader among the Opposition parties who could pose a challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Abdullah said circumstances threw up their own solutions and they would cross that bridge when the time comes.
“The same question was asked after Jawaharlal Nehru’s death. Who would have thought a
straight-forward and diminutive person like Lal Bahadur Shastri would provide the alternative,” he said, adding that Opposition parties would have to sink their differences and come together if they wanted to save the nation from BJP.
Neighbouring Doda recorded an 81% turnout. Ramban district recorded a turnout of 78%, Udhampur 84%, Kathua 80%, Rajouri 79% and Poonch 79%.
“Jammu people have always negated separatists’ diktats and this time also, we are seeing a healthy turnout,” said a home department official on condition of anonymity. In the valley, the turnout percentage was mixed. Kupwara recorded 71.9%, Bandipore 55.7%, Baramulla.69.1%, Ganderbal 11.9%, Srinagar .21.8% and Budgam 30.1%. Kargil had a turnout of 70.9% and Leh 59.7%.
In Hayatpora village in north Kashmir’s Kunzer block, at a polling station housed in a school, 123 votes had been cast out of 178 by 1pm and many were still waiting for their turn. “This is an election to select village heads and it has nothing to do with the politics of Kashmir. We hope people who will get elected will help to get our day-to-day problems resolved,” said Saifudin Rishi, a local villager. Six kilometres away, at Manglora Takiya Batpora in the same block. the mood was completely different as very few people turned up to vote. Out of 714 registered voters, only 24 had cast their votes by the time polling ended at 2 pm. “At polling booths 5 and 6, only eight and six votes were polled while in 7 and 8, 10 votes were polled. Most of the voters didn’t come out,” an official at the polling station said on condition of anonymity.
At least 6,000 candidates are in the fray in the nine-phase elections. The second phase will be held on 20 November. In January, militant group Hizbul Mujahideen had warned former panchayat members against contesting the elections. The group’s operational commander, Riyaz Naikoo, had threatened to pour acid in the eyes of anyone who dared to contest the polls. In the last panchayat elections, held in 2011, the polling percentage was more than 70%. At least half-a-dozen panchayat houses were either damaged or set on fire by suspected militants after the poll dates were announced in September. Sixteen sarpanchs (panchayat heads) and panchs (panchayat members) have been killed by militants in the last four years .
The National Conference (NC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the two main parties in J&K, have boycotted the elections over the “lack of clarity” surrounding the Centre’s stand on legal challenges in the Supreme Court to the state’s special status. Both parties had stayed away from October’s urban local body polls over the same issue.