Cong, NC leaders’ meet on pre-poll alliance
Gopal Sharma
JAMMU, Aug 19: While AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge and LOP Rahul Gandhi met the party general secretaries/Incharges and AICC Screening Committee members of the four poll bound States including J&K and Haryana at Delhi this evening, the senior leaders of Congress Party in J&K and National Conference tonight started dialogue on the ‘pre-poll alliance’, ahead of the J&K Assembly elections.
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Party sources said that Congress president Kharge and former AICC chief and LOP Rahul Gandhi held meeting with the general secretaries/Incharges and screening committee members of four Assembly poll-bound States, with the party asserting it is ‘fully geared up’ for the upcoming Assembly elections in four States.
While the elections will take place in Jammu and Kashmir, and Haryana in September and October, Maharashtra and Jharkhand are set to go to polls later this year.
The three-phase elections to the 90-member Jammu and Kashmir Assembly will be held on September 18, September 25 and October 1. The elections to the 90-member Haryana Assembly will be held on October 1 and results for both the polls will be declared on October 4.
Besides Kharge and Gandhi, Congress general secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal and the members of Screening Committees for Haryana, J&K, Maharashtra and Jharkhand were also present during the meeting at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi.
“The Congress president, Mallikarjun Kharge and LOP Rahul Gandhi held an important meeting with the general secretaries, Incharges and Screening Committee Members of the four election-going States at AICC HQ,” Venugopal said on X.
“We are fully geared up for the upcoming round of elections. There is palpable anger against the BJP and its allies and we are confident that we will emerge victorious and fulfil the people’s wishes for a pro-poor, pro-people Government in each of these States,” he said.
Congress set up screening for Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir to select the candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections, hardly a few days ago.
Senior Cong leader from Punjab Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has been named as the Chairman of the Screening Committee for Jammu and Kashmir with Anto Antony and Sachin Rao as members.
For Haryana, AICC chief appointed Ajay Maken as the Chairman of the screening committee with Manickam Tagore, Jignesh Mevani and Srinivas B V as members.
Madhusudan Mistry has been named the chairman of the screening committee for Maharashtra while Girish Chodankar for Jharkhand,.
Sources in JKPCC said that the meeting on pre-poll alliance between Congress and NC in J&K Assembly elections started at around 8:15 pm in a hotel at Srinagar on Monday. The top leadership on both the sides, deputed five senior leaders to hold discussions over the pre-poll alliance issue.
Sources said that National Conference president Dr Farooq Abdullah and the party vice president Omar Abdullah were not present in the meeting. It was first round of the meeting and they may join later involving top AICC leaders in Delhi.
“AICC general secretary (Org), K C Venugopal today constituted the five-member committee of senior J&K leaders headed by newly appointed, JKPCC president and former MP, Tariq Hameed Karra. The other members of the committee are- Ghulam Ahmed Mir, former JKPCC president and AICC general secretary; former JKPCC president, Vikar Rasool Wani; former Dy Chief Minister and JKPCC working president Tara Chand and JKPCC working president, Raman Bhalla,” the party sources said.
While Raman Bhalla and Tara Chand were already in Srinagar today in connection with the reception rally of newly appointed JKPCC chief Tariq Hameed Karra, Mir left for Delhi after reception rally was over to attend another important meeting in the Union capital. Bhalla also reached back to Jammu in an afternoon flight. He was asked by a senior AICC leader to rush back to Srinagar to join an important meeting with NC leaders tonight over pre-poll alliance.
Sources in the National Conference said that party cadre was exerting pressure on Omar Abdullah to reconsider his decision on `not contesting Assembly elections’. They are also in favour of poll alliance with the like minded party.
In the meeting tonight, the sources said, on the directions of the party president Dr Farooq Abdullah, senior NC leaders- Nasir Aslam Wani, Khalid Najeeb Suhrawardy, Sakina Ittoo, Ajay Kumar Sadhotra and Rattan Lal Gupta took part in the deliberations with Congress leaders.
“Both the sides were positive on the pre-poll alliance. They discussed seat sharing on about two dozen Assembly segments during over two and half hours long joint meeting. They held discussions case to case on each seat on the agenda today. The meeting remained very positive and it will be resumed tomorrow,” the sources added.
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