Gopal Sharma
JAMMU/ SRINAGAR, Oct 9: JKPCC president, Tariq Hamid Karra along with AICC general
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secretary Incharge Jammu and Kashmir, Bharatsinh Solanki today reached Delhi to meet top party leadership.
Sources added that after meeting National Conference president Dr Farooq Abdullah and his son- Omar Abdullah at their Gupkar residence this morning, to congratulate them for the grand success of the party and the alliance in the Assembly elections, Solanki and Karra left for New Delhi.
“Before leaving for New Delhi this afternoon, both Solanki and Karra had a brief meeting with senior Congress leaders in Srinagar who included AICC general secretary and winning candidate from Dooru Ghulam Ahmed Mir and former JKPCC chief and party candidate from Anantnag (Kokernag), Peerzada Mohammed Syed besides others.
“Both National Conference and Congress leaderships have to work on Common Minimum Programme (CMP) and sharing of Ministerial berths. It may take a few days in Government formation. But it is expected that NC cadre will have its meeting with the winning candidates on Friday or most probably on Saturday, for electing its leader,” the sources added.
Meanwhile, JKPCC president said that the party would introspect its dismal performance in the Assembly election in the Jammu region. He also alleged that there were some lapses on part of the administration or some deliberate attempts in the run up to the elections.
“We are very sorry for that, but we will introspect it. But, there are other factors also. There were lapses on part of the administration, or some deliberate attempts, in the last three days of the polling day, all the check-points established by the police were withdrawn, and the distribution of money and liquor was facilitated,” JKPCC chief told media persons.
Karra said the mandate of the people was against the BJP’s hate politics and their oppressive policies. “It is against their divisive policies, hate-mongering, their atrocities on the people at the Constitution, legal, social-cultural, and religion level. People have voted against that,” he said.
Karra said the party will be fighting for the restoration of statehood and “the struggle will now start afresh”.
Responding to a question whether there was some discussion over government formation between the two parties, Karra said there have been no talks yet.
“We had only come to congratulate them on behalf of the party. We congratulated Abdullahs formally. Omar Abdullah has said that their Legislature Party meeting is to happen, then they will talk with the alliance partner. We have to wait for their Legislature party to meet,” he added.
Karra also said that Article 370 remains a “contentious issue” that has not yet been discussed with the NC, their alliance partner, noting that the talks on Government formation will be held after the meeting.
“There will be deliberations on our stance regarding Article 370, and accordingly, the contentious issues will surface. As of now, we have not discussed anything related to this with the NC leadership,” he said.
Karra added that the NC will first hold a meeting of its Legislature Party, and only after that they will meet their alliance partner, Congress, to formulate the rest, which, he said, will then lead to the formation of the Government in J&K.
When asked when the Government formation in J&K would take place, the JKPCC chief did not give any time frame, rather, stressed that the Legislature party meeting of the alliance partner must happen first. He added that this would be followed by other formalities, including the letter of support.
On the issue of the nomination of MLAs by the Lieutenant Governor, Karra described the move as “undemocratic and unconstitutional,” but noted that it wouldn’t pose any problems for them.
“We’ve initiated some action on this matter; let’s see how successful we are. However, I don’t foresee any problems arising due to the LG nominating MLAs,” he added.