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| National Conference a one region party | | 2014 elections | | Rustam
JAMMU, Dec 6: National Conference (NC) president and Union Minister Farooq Abdullah, who a day before asked the people to accept the money from the political parties during the elections but give votes to the NC on Thursday not only announced the names of the three party candidates who would seek (re)election to the Lok Sabha in 2014 but also claimed that the NC would form the next Government in the State on its own. All the three sitting Members of Parliament of the NC will seek re-election from three Lok Sabha seats of Kashmir valley during the forthcoming Parliamentary elections, he announced at a function organized to observe the 108th birth anniversary of his father and founder of the NC Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah at Hazratbal, Srinagar.
"As long as I am alive, I will contest from Srinagar-Budgam Parliament constituency, Dr Mehboob Beg is our candidate from South Kashmir and Sharief-ud-Din Sharik from North Kashmir," he said. In the 2009 Parliamentary elections, Farooq Abdullah had won from Srinagar-Budgam Lok Sabha constituency, Sharif-ud-Din Shariq from Baramulla-Kupwara constituency and Mehboob Beig from Anantnag-Pulwama constituency.
It is not known if the NC made this declaration unilaterally or in consultation with the Congress party with the understanding that the NC would contest the Lok Sabha election in Kashmir and the Congress in Jammu and Ladakh. Whatever the case, one thing is clear that the NC, which once used to contest election in the entire state and ruled the state on its own for years, has lost its support-base in Jammu province and Ladakh region and has become a one-region party. A party that decides to contest election only in one region cannot claim that it is a state level party. The NC leadership knows that there are hardly any takers for the communal, pro-autonomy and biased party in Jammu and Ladakh and that it would bite dust in case it contests elections in these two regions housing people who believe in mainstream politics and, hence, acceptance of defeat even before testing political waters in these two regions.
Farooq Abdullah claimed that his party would form the next Government in the State on its own cannot be taken seriously. A party whose support-base is confined only to a few Assembly constituencies in the Kashmir Valley and is unlikely to repeat its 2008 performance cannot make such a loud claim. In 2008, the NC could not win more than 20 seats out of 46 in the Kashmir Valley and right now the NC wave is sweeping the entire state. In Kashmir, the PDP will pose a serious challenge to the NC and the BJP will pose a serious challenge both to the Congress and the NC in atleast 25 out of 37 Assembly constituencies. If the current mood of the people in the State is any indication, then it can be said that the days of the NC in the state are numbered like the days of the Congress at the national level are numbered. The assertion of Farooq Abdullah that "the 2014 Assembly elections will silent all those voices, who are sidelining our party and the NC will form the next Government on its own" appears nothing but a day dreaming. |
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