Mehbooba Mufti isolation in INDIA deepens as Congress, NC seal deal for J&K, Ladakh seats

With the Congress officially extending its support to the National Conference (NC) for the three parliamentary seats in the Valley, the Mehbooba Mufti-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seems to have been cornered in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in the Lok Sabha polls, even as the three parties remain constituents of the Opposition INDIA alliance.

While vowing to defeat “divisive forces” in J&K, both the NC and the PDP have declared that they will contest all three seats in the Valley. On Sunday, the PDP announced that Mehbooba will fight from Anantnag-Rajouri, Waheed ur Rehman Para from Srinagar and former Rajya Sabha MP Fayaz Ahmed Mir from the Baramulla seat.

Of these three seats, the NC has already announced the candidature of Gujjar leader Mian Altaf Lahrvi from Anantnag-Rajouri. Although NC president and incumbent Srinagar MP Farooq Abdullah will not contest this time, the party is yet to announce whether his son and ex-chief minister Omar Abdullah would replace him as its candidate.

For the two seats in the Jammu region, both the NC and the PDP are backing the Congress candidates – Raman Bhalla in Jammu and Chaudhary Lal Singh in Udhampur.

Meanwhile, in New Delhi, the Congress and the NC officially announced their seat-sharing agreement for J&K and Ladakh Monday, with Omar, accompanied by senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid, telling a press conference that the Congress will contest the Udhampur, Jammu and Ladakh seats while the NC will field its candidates in the three Kashmir seats.

On whether the PDP is still a part of the INDIA bloc, Khurshid reportedly said, “PDP is in our alliance. Seat adjustment is one part of the alliance and an overall alliance is a different issue. Since J&K is small in area, there is not much