Neeraj Rohmetra
JAMMU, Feb 15: After Rajya Sabha elections, the PDP-BJP combine is reported to have reached an understanding on jointly contesting 11 seats of Legislative Council, eight in biennial election category and three by-elections, which were scheduled to be held on March 2 with February 18 being last date for filing of nomination papers.
Insiders in the PDP and BJP revealed to the Excelsior tonight that under the understanding reached between the two would be coalition partners, the PDP would contest six seats of the Legislative Council and BJP 5. Both the parties could lose one seat each to NC-Congress alliance-one each in Jammu and Kashmir provinces but they would still get away with lion’s share of nine seats very comfortably and 10 seats in hard fought battle.
The PDP and BJP had contested February 7 Rajya Sabha elections jointly and won three out of four seats with PDP taking two and BJP one. The remaining seat was won by NC-Congress combine with the help of three Independent candidates with Leader of Opposition and Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad emerging winner.
BJP sources said all powerful BJP Parliamentary Board is meeting in New Delhi tomorrow to finalise the party candidates for the Legislative Council elections. The BJP State Election Committee has already submitted panel of candidates to the Parliamentary Board for selection.
The BJP Parliamentary Board comprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley among others.
Sources said the PDP has almost finalized names of five candidates for the Legislative Council seats, which it would contest in alliance with the BJP.
Of 11 seats, the PDP could contest two seats of Jammu province leaving three for BJP while out of four seats of Kashmir province, the PDP might contest three leaving one for BJP. Of two reserved seats-one each for Leh and Kargil, the BJP would contest Leh and the PDP Kargil.
The PDP would field Haji Inayat Ali, president, Youth Wing Islamiya School for Kargil seat, Surinder Choudhary on Jammu seat, who had lost Assembly election from Nowshera constituency but polled 27,877 votes, Yasir Rishi, who had lost Assembly elections from Sonawar by just 428 votes, Javed Ahmad Miirchal, who was PDP’s covering candidate from Karnah and Saif-ud-Din Bhat, who had contested party election from Khansaheb constituency for three seats of Kashmir.
The party is also considering names of Vikramaditya Singh and Ved Mahajan for another seat of Jammu.
The elections for eight biennial vacancies are being held as an equal number of MLCs are completing their term between March 9 and 16. They are Ajatshatru Singh (NC now BJP), BR Kundal (Congress), Syed Asgar Ali (PDP) and Khalid Najib Suhrawardhy (NC), all four in Jammu province for which one election will be held, Narboo Gialchan (Congress), a seat reserved for Ladakh tehsil of Kashmir province for which one election will be held, Aga Syed Ahmad Rizvi (NC), a seat reserved for Kargil tehsil of Kashmir province, for which one election will be held, Vijay Bakaya (NC) and Syed Mohammad Rafiq Shah (NPP now PDP), two seats of Kashmir province for which one election will be held.
Three separate by-elections will be held for three vacancies, which have arisen due to the election of three MLCs to the Legislative Assembly.
One election will be held for the vacancy of NC leader Devender Singh Rana from amongst the candidates of Jammu province. The winner would get term of four years only. Second election will be held against the vacancy of Abdul Majeed Bhat Laram (NC) from amongst the candidates of Kashmir province. The winner would get term of four years only. The third by-election will be held for the vacancy of Mohammad Ashraf Mir (PDP) from amongst the candidates of Kashmir province. The winner will get term of two years only.
As per the Election Laws, the winners of by-elections get only remaining term of the MLCs, whose resignation leads to creation of the vacancy while for eight seats falling vacant under biennial elections, which are called regular vacancies, the candidates get full term of six years.
Sources said the PDP-BJP combine would be in a position to win nine to 10 seats comfortably going by the equations in the Legislative Assembly. The prospectus of the newly formed alliance would get further boost if the Government is formed before the elections as the Alliance can nominate two women MLAs to the Assembly, who also have the right to cast votes for the Legislative Council elections though they can’t vote for Rajya Sabha polls.
Just like the Alliance won two seats of Shamsher Singh Manhas (BJP) and Mir Mohammad Fayaz (PDP) for Rajya Sabha without much contest as separate notifications had been issued for them, the Alliance candidates would win five seats comfortably for which five separate elections are being held including three by-election vacancies of Rana, Laram and Ashraf Mir and two seats reserved for Leh and Kargil districts being vacated by Narboo Gialchan and Aga Syed Ahmad Rizvi of Congress and NC respectively.
On one election for four seats of Jammu province, the PDP-BJP alliance would be in a position to wrest three seats while NC-Congress combine together can win one seat. The PDP-BJP, which have confirmed support of 57 MLAs can get their candidates polled 19 votes each while NC-Congress combine have maximum of 30 votes (which were polled by Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad in recent Rajya Sabha elections). Even if NC-Congress combine split the votes to two candidates, they can manage the victory of one candidate only as PDP-BJP combine nominees would have 19 votes each.
For seventh election for two seats of Kashmir division, the votes could be repeated just like February 7 results for two seats of Rajya Sabha unless the election takes place after the Government formation and PDP-BJP get two extra votes of nominated women MLAs. In this notification, the PDP-BJP combine would be sure of one seat and could get even both with the help of nominated women MLAs and if they managed to get one Independent out of three, who voted for Azad, on their side.
Overall, sources said, the PDP-BJP combine would easily win nine out of 11 seats on which elections will be held and even 10 with some extra support.
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