Rumblings in INDIA bloc in J&K as NC, PDP slug it out over sharing Valley seats

The Lok Sabha elections are barely a couple of months away, but uncertainty continues to surround the Opposition INDIA alliance’s seat sharing in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

At the centre of this uncertainty are the three parliamentary seats in the Kashmir Valley, with the National Conference (NC) keen to contest from all of them. The NC is one of the three constituents of the alliance in Jammu and Kashmir that also include the Congress and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

Over the last six months, NC leaders including Omar Abdullah have repeatedly staked their claim on the Valley’s three seats that are currently represented by its MPs – Farooq Abdullah, Hasnain Masoodi and Mohammad Akbar Lone.

On the other hand, the NC’s main rival in Kashmir, the PDP, has agreed to settle for a smaller share of seats.

After the collapse of its coalition government with the BJP in 2018, the party lost all these three seats in 2019, including its South Kashmir stronghold of Anantnag where PDP president Mehbooba Mufti lost to the NC’s first-timer, Hasnain Masoodi. This time, the PDP wants the NC to contest the Srinagar and the Baramulla constituencies and leave Anantnag for the party.

The Congress, too, seems to be in agreement with the PDP’s proposal. Of these seats, the Congress can claim to have a substantial vote bank only in Anantnag, where former state unit president Ghulam Ahmad Mir stood second in the 2019 elections ahead of Mufti. However, the Congress has moved Mir out of the equation by appointing him as an All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in charge of West Bengal and Jharkhand.

With the Rajouri and Poonch districts now a part of the Anantnag constituency after re-organisation, sitting MP Masoodi’s sway in