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| Pre-poll alliance another addition to coalition confusion | | | early times report
Jammu, Nov 24: Once again complete confusion rules the NC-Congress functioning in the State. CM says NC and Congress will fight 2014 elections jointly, senior Congress leader and Health Minister, Sham Lal Sharma says matter to be decided by Congress high command while Dr. Mustafa Kamaal says Omar Abdullah must consult the party before firming up on such a commitment.
As if the confusion was already not completely confounded, another senior Congress leader Chowdhary Taj Mohi-ud-din says the 2014 election alliance between the Congress and the NC has already been approved by the Congress high command.
Strange are the ways of the coalition's functioning in the State, but stranger are the ways in which the two major partners of the alliance are behaving in public. The CM during his recent visit to Bandipora village not only announced that the 2014 elections would be fought jointly by the NC and the Congress but also announced that Usman Majid, the local Congress leader, would be the alliance's joint candidate from Bandipora. Two statements made together indicating both that the NC and the Congress had decided on fighting the 2014 elections jointly and also that Bandipora Assembly constituency would be fought by the Congress candidate for the alliance.
How much of the Valley's ground would be conceded to the Congress by the NC were the 2014 elections really to be fought jointly by them? The Congress has three seats in the 87-member state Assembly at present from the Valley. If the Congress and the NC were to fight the 2014 elections jointly would the Congress accept anything less than 10 seats from the 46 assembly seats to be fought in the Valley?
In the Jammu region the Congress has 13 seats. How many out of the 37 seats in the Jammu region would the Congress be able to concede to the NC given the fact that the major battle in the Jammu region would be between the Congress and the BJP? The very electoral chemistry is against any pre-poll alliance between the NC and the Congress and this fact is known well to both the Congress and the NC. Secondly, any alliance between the Congress and the NC in the Valley would definitely erode on the NC's regional identity.
Amid this statistical reality, the NC and some Congress leaders are intentionally talking of a pre-poll alliance not to actually work out the modalities of the alliance, but to basically try and gauge the public mood. Another intention of the announcement appears to be to watch the reaction of the PDP. How does the PDP react to the announcement is not difficult to understand given the fact that the NC and the Congress leaders are sufficient to create confusion within their ranks while the PDP can watch the confusion silently.
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