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| What does Kamaal's attack on Congress mean? | | 'Cross-voting in Anantnag' | | Rustam
Jammu, May 3: On May 2, NC additional general secretary and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's outspoken uncle Mustafa Kamaal attacked the Congress and charged it with stabbing the NC in the back in the Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency where election was held on April 24 and expressed the view that the Congress would do the same in the Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency. The Congress would cross-vote in Baramulla like it cross-voted in Anantnag, he claimed without mincing words. "It was all done in the broad day light in Anantnag. Everyone knows that Congress did vote for PDP on April 24. We sacrificed everything for them and in return they backstabbed and ditched us," Mustafa Kamaal, in fact, said, while talking to a correspondent of a local news gathering agency in Srinagar. To make his point, he said "one of the senior leaders from the Congress from South Kashmir was demanding at least one seat from the Valley. When it didn't happen, he expressed his rancor".
"The Congress workers in South Kashmir voted for PDP and this perhaps would have been done on the directions of the party leadership. Not all in Congress could be like this but some for sure have acted as the spoilsport. Congress leaders have already made it clear to National Conference leadership that it would be difficult for them to transfer Congress votes in NC's favour. I wonder what sort of leaders are they when they have no command on their cadres on the ground. Yes, we know that the Congress in North Kashmir also will vote against the NC candidate," he also said. What Mustafa Kamaal said was nothing but a blistering attack on the Congress on whose support the NC depends for its success in the Kashmir's three Lok Sabha seats - Srinagar, Baramulla and Anantnag.
There was a point in what he said about the Congress. Indeed, the Congress wanted one of three seats in the Valley and its view was that it would not be in the Congress's long term political interests in the Valley if it allowed the NC to contest all the three seats. In fact, a big Congress delegation from Kashmir had met with the Congress high command in Delhi to persuade it to make the NC leave one seat for the Congress, but it returned to Kashmir empty handed, as the Congress high command did not consider their demand. The negative response that the delegation evoked had not gone down well with bulk of the local Congress leaders and cadres. Weak as they were, they did not protest, but they in their heart of hearts were determined to teach the NC leadership a lesson at an appropriate time and the appropriate time, of course, is the election in the Kashmir's three Lok Sabha constituencies.
Remember, many local Congress leaders and workers are bitterly opposed to the NC leadership and the reasons are obvious. In Jammu also, the attitude of most of the Congress leaders and workers, barring the sitting MPs, was also the same. There were reports that some Jammu-based NC leaders did share dais with the Congress candidates but worked against them through their men.
This happened particularly in the areas of Jammu province where the Muslims were more numerous. It also happened in a number of the Hindu-dominated constituencies. What does the Mustafa Kamaal's attack on the Congress suggest? It suggests two things. It suggests that the NC candidate for the Anantnag constituency might not win the election and that the NC candidate for the Baramulla constituency is on a sticky wicket. His charge that the Congress supporters and workers cross-voted in daylight in Anantnag and they would do the same in Baramulla doesn't suggest anything else.
His attack on the Congress and that too four days before the people go to the polls in Baramulla also clearly that all is not well with the coalition. Will the Congress take cognizance of what Mustafa Kamaal said about it and give appropriate response to it? |
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