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| Case of pot calling kettle black | | |
Early Times Report
JAMMU, Nov 10: It is a case of the pot calling the kettle black with Congress candidates campaigning during the ensuing Assembly poll against the National Conference candidates. It is so because during the last about six years the two parties have been sharing power and even during the recent Lok Sabha elections the two had reached an agreement under which the three Lok Sabha seats in the Kashmir valley were left for the NC to contest and the three seats in the regions of Jammu and Ladakh were allotted to the Congress. Since both the parties, that have been sharing power, drew a blank from all the three regions the two decided to go alone in the upcoming Assembly election.
The Congress has finalized the name of 69 candidates and among them are included all Ministers and MLAs leaving no chance for any surprise or for the rise of rebels in the party during the election. Even Sham Lal Sharma, who had quit the Cabinet in protest against delay on the part of the Government in regularizing the services of 60,000 daily wagers had been given the party mandate. The way the Congress has included all prominent leaders, especially MLAs and Ministers, in the mandate list chances of desertion from the party have been made bleak.
At one stage there was a possibility of Sham Lal Sharma joining the BJP in case he was not given Congress ticket by the high command but that possibility has become remote as Sharma has been allotted the ticket for contesting from Akhnoor seat from where he had been elected to the Assembly in 2008.
The party has also repeated all its sitting legislators and Ministers including Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand who will again contest from Chhamb and Raman Bhalla from Gandhi Nagar in Jammu district. Similarly, other Ministers including Taj Mohiuddin and Peerzada Sayeed have been fielded again from Uri and Kokernag seats of the Valley respectively.
Another sitting legislator and Minister GA Mir has been fielded from Doru in south Kashmir's Anantnag district. The party has fielded Raman Mattoo, a local Pandit for the Habba Kadal seat in Srinagar district, against Moti Kaul of the BJP, who is also a Kashmiri Pandit. Habba Kadal has nearly 20,000 Pandit migrant voters. It is with an eye on Kashmiri Pandit migrant voters that both the BJP and the Congress chose to field local Pandit candidates for this seat. Congress has fielded Khem Lata Wakhloo, a Pandit female candidate from Sonawar constituency where Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is fighting the elections this time. Prominent among those fighting elections for the first time is Salman Anees Soz, party national spokesperson and son of Jammu and Kashmir Congress president, Professor Saifuddin Soz. He has been fielded for north Kashmir Baramulla Assembly seat.
Now that the Congress has fielded candidates from all those seats where National Conference (NC) has also fielded the candidates it may sound awkward for the contestants of the two parties if they open their mouth against each other. It is so because both the NC and the Congress have been sharing power in Jammu and Kashmir for the last about six years. It was simply love for power that the Congress tolerated big brother attitude from the National Conference during all these years. And as far as the National Conference is concerned it tolerated many difficult situations created by the Congress simply to prevent the PDP from sharing power with the Congress. If the congress candidates start berating the National Conference for poor performance during the last six years they may be asked by the voters one question. "What were you doing all these years when you were sharing power with the NC ?"And if the NC candidates blame the Congress for all the ills that have taken roots in the state during the last six years they too may face one question from the voters "Where were you when the Government was committing one blunder after another? Was it not your job to check corruption, misgovernance when you were sharing power with the Congress?" But in order to woo voters both the Congress and the NC were supposed to list some of the achievements of the coalition rule instead of blaming each other for all misadventures in the states.
But it may not be "I see no evil" attitude on the part of either the Congress or the National Conference. The two allies, now cut asunder, may hit each other simply to woo voters. |
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