NC likely to go in for complete overhaul

Seemingly in a state of shock over the complete rout in the recently- held Lok Sabha elections, Jammu and Kashmir’s ruling National Conference is likely to go in for a total overhaul in the next couple of weeks. The party working president, chief minister Omar Abdullah, has already publicly committed himself to retrospecting and seeing “what went wrong and where were we in the wrong”.

Party sources here said that calling it a day by the chief minister at this stage, as is being suggested and even demanded by various sections, would be giving in to NC’s bête noire in Kashmir politics, the People’s Democratic Party ( PDP), and the BJP on a platter. His coalition partners in the Congress cannot afford it either. Nor will reshuffle or any other similar major changes in the government be advisable as less than six months are left for holding elections to the State Assembly after the completion of the stipulated six years term of the present House. Option of dissolving it and going in for early elections will be equally imprudent, rather suicidal, on part of the coalition, the local watchers said.

However, the NC leadership is all set to go for a formal retrospection at the party level. For this purpose a series of meetings have been called by Mr Abdullah.

Party president Farooq Abdullah, who lost to PDP’s Tariq Hameed Karra by a margin of over 42,000 votes in his home constituency of Srinagar, is returning here by Monday evening to participate in these meetings.

Senior party leaders, ministers and legislators from all the three region of the state — Jammu, Valley and Ladakh — have been asked to reach Srinagar to attend these meetings.

He has also called the NC’s “core group” comprising over 20 members, including some special invitees, at party headquarters here to discuss the debacle and future strategy.