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| Alliance with pro-autonomy NC unlikely to help Cong | | | Neha
JAMMU, Mar 24: Convinced that it cannot repeat its 2004 and 2009 performance in Jammu province, the Congress leadership has sought the support of the NC so that it could win both the seats. The Congress leadership believes that the NC could garner the majority community votes for the party candidates from districts like Poonch, Rajouri, Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban. The NC may get some votes for the Congress from these districts as it has been communalizing these areas since years now, despite the fact that the PDP has also been quite active in these areas. The PDP would certainly get votes from these districts to the disadvantage of the coalition candidates. It would be politically unwise to dismiss the PDP as no factor in these areas.
The view of the Congress that its pre-poll alliance with the NC would improve its poll prospects is ill-founded. It may get some Muslim votes from these areas, but it would lose many in other districts, where the voters belonging to the minority community are numerous. The minority community is unlikely to vote for the Congress candidates like they did in 2004 and 2009. The reason is that the NC is preparing a manifesto which is highly divisive. The NC additional general secretary Mustafa Kamaal not once but a number of times during the past few days has said that the party ideologues are preparing the party manifesto and it would go to the people to seek their mandate on such divisive and unsettling planks as greater autonomy, army, Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Pakistan. He has said that the party would go the people of Kashmir and tell them that a vote for the NC would a vote for greater autonomy for the state, withdrawal of the Army and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Pakistani cause in Jammu & Kashmir.
It is obvious that the NC manifesto would further alienate the people of Jammu not only from the NC but also from the Congress as the NC is a coalition partner of the Congress party. The people of Jammu province are politically conscious and they would think a hundred times before casting their votes for the Congress candidates. After all, they have been fighting the divisive politics of the parties like the NC. And it is not for nothing that the NC's support-base in Jammu province has shrunk and shrunk massively. The Congress leadership will have to explain its stand on the NC's stand on Jammu & Kashmir and it would be a very difficult exercise. The point is that the Congress would be at the receiving end.
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