Mehbooba Opposed

there (Kargil) because we clearly told our colleagues in Kargil that if we have to support anyone and help anyone to win, it should be Congress candidate T Namgyal.

He said the NC’s colleagues in Kargil unfortunately did not accept it and decided to leave the party en masse. Expressing regret over the development, he said he had repeatedly visited Kargil after 2019 and rebuilt the NC there with a lot of difficulty.

“We cannot do anything about something that is not in our control but still I will appeal to people with National Conference in Leh and Kargil, if there are any left, to vote for Namgyal,” he added.

The entire Kargil unit of the NC on Monday resigned from the party saying the party high command was pressurising them to support Congress candidate Namgyal.

Qamar Ali Akhoon, who was the additional general secretary and party in-charge for Kargil, said the political and religious organisations in Kargil had decided to support independent candidate Haji Hanifa for the Lok Sabha election. He said it was not possible for him to go against the “local consensus”.

Under the seat-sharing agreement between the Congress and the NC, the two parties had agreed to field three candidates each for the six Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. While the NC has fielded candidates on three seats in the Kashmir valley, the Congress has fielded its candidates on two seats in Jammu and one in Ladakh.

A similar situation had arisen in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, which were contested by the NC and the Congress in a pre-poll alliance.

NC leader Ghulam Hassan Khan had rebelled against the party decision to concede the mandate for Ladakh Lok Sabha seat to Congress leader P Namgyal and contested, and won, as an independent candidate.

Khan, who defeated Namgyal by a margin of 3,000 votes, supported the Congress-led UPA-II government on the advice of Farooq Abdullah.