Mustansir
Srinagar, July15 : There were no surprises in the National Conference (NC) first list of 32 candidates for the forthcoming Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections issued on Tuesday as the party chose to field known faces from the segments which are not represented by Congress in the state assembly currently. The party has either fielded sitting MLAs including senior party leaders or has nominated its candidates for the constituencies represented by opposition PDP and BJP in the assembly. This clearly shows that beleaguered National Conference is still looking for alliance with its coalition partner, which, however, some senior Congress leaders rule out. The second interesting observation was that the list issued does not include the name of chief minister, Omar Abdullah. The party representing all the eight assembly segments of Srinagar city in the assembly, has not cleared its candidature for Hazratbal, Sonwar and Zadibal. The list includes senior party leaders and sitting legislators from many constituencies in the Kashmir Valley. They include Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather, Forest Minister Mian Altaf Ahmad, Social Welfare Minister Sakina Itoo, Consumer Affairs Minister Choudhary Muham-mad Ramzan, Rural Development Minister Ali Muhammad Sagar, Higher Education Minister Muhammad Akbar Lone, Law Minister Mir Saiffulah, Minister of State for Home Sajjad Ahmad Kichloo, Animal Husbandry Minister Nazir Ahmad Khan and Speaker Mubarak Gul. A party statement issued here said party general secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar announced the first list of candidates for the assembly polls today after the names were cleared by the party parliamentary board chaired by working president Omar Abdullah on the approval of party chief Farooq Abdullah. The list has 19 candidates for the Kashmir Valley, 12 for Jammu region and one for Ladakh region. "The Parliamentary board comprising of Ali Muhammad Sagar, Abdul Rahim Rather, Sardar Harbans Singh, Choudhary Mohammad Ramzan, Qamar Ali Akhoon, Nasir Aslam Wani and Devender Singh Rana met here today in the morning and discussed the panels of candidates received from the block and the district committees of the party," the statement said. |
