Jammu and Kashmir Election news: National Conference president Farooq Abdullah confirmed on Thursday that his party will be in an alliance with Congress in the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir elections. "The Congress and NC are standing together. (MY) Tarigami (CPI-M) is also with us. I hope our people are also with us and we shall win with the blessings of Allah. People have faced problems for several years and we hope that the statehood will be reinstated," Farooq Abdullah said after meeting Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and MP Rahul Gandhi in Srinagar.
He also said that the demand for statehood for Jammu and Kashmir is a top priority for the alliance.
His comments came amid rumours of a possible rift in the INDIA bloc in Jammu & Kashmir. The Congress also said it was discussing alliance strategies with local leaders. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said: "We shall work on the advice of our local leaders regarding the alliance. Rahulji has said that we should all fight together in Jammu and Kashmir because the INDIA bloc fought the [Lok Sabha] elections unitedly and stopped a dictator from getting a majority. This was a huge success."
Although the alliance has been confirmed, the two parties are yet to decide on a seat-sharing formula.
ALSO READ | INDIA Bloc Stares At Collapse In J&K As Congress Looks For New Allies After PDP, NC's Poor Show In LS Polls
NC-Congress Alliance After A Decade
With Farooq Abdullah's announcement, the National Conference-Congress alliance has been revived after 10 years. This is the first time after the 2008 Jammu and Kashmir election that the two parties have come together for an assembly election. The two parties fought the 2008 assembly polls together and won against PDP. At 38, NC's Omar Abdullah became undivided Jammu and Kashmir's youngest Chief Minister.
The two parties then fought the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections in alliance as well. However, National Conference and Congress fell apart before the 2014 assembly polls. The bitterness in the two parties came out into the open when the leaders of the parties blamed one another for an apparent deficiency in public trust. While Congress accused NC of a "governance deficit" and "humiliating Congress workers", the NC blamed its ally for "creating administrative chaos".
'Unprecedented Move By Centre': Congress On Statehood Demand
Speaking to Congress workers on the statehood demand for J&K, Mallikarjun Kharge said: "Never has been a state converted to a Union Territory. Jammu and Kashmir was a state. But they [BJP-led] Centre made it a Union Territory. Because of this, there is neither a council, nor an assembly, nor a panchayat here. The Modi government worked hard to destroy the democracy here, due to which elections had not been held here till now. Elections were announced only after the Supreme Court ordered."
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, too, said that the "snatching" of J&K's statehood was unprecedented and that he would work towards its restoration.