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| Decision of PDP to contest all 87 seats will harm NC, Cong | | 2014 Assembly election | |
Rustam
JAMMU, June 19: The People's Democratic Party, which scored a great victory in the Lok Sabha election by winning all the three Kashmir Lok sabha seats, has decided to contest all the 87 seats in the upcoming Assembly election. The decision to this effect was taken by the political affairs committee of the party and announced by the party general secretary Mohammad Dilawar Mir. It will be for the first time that the PDP would be fielding its candidates in all the 87 constituencies. In 2008, the PDP had contested election in 79 Assembly constituencies -- 46 out of 46 in Kashmir, 31 out of 37 in Jammu and 2 out of 4 in Ladakh - and won 21 seats - 19 in Kashmir and 2 in Jammu. The PDP contested the Assembly election in the state for the first time in 2002 and had won 18 seats. It led the state Government between November 2002 and 2005 with the Congress' support. Sonia Gandhi had handed over the state power to the PDP in what she called "larger national interest". Remember, the Congress had won more seats as compared to the PDP.
The decision of the PDP to contest all the 87 seats in the upcoming Assembly election must have rattled the already demoralized NC and Congress leadership -- demoralized because the Congress and the NC, which contested the just-held Lok Sabha election together, failed to open its account in any of the three regions of the state - Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. The Congress had fielded three candidates in Jammu and Ladakh and the NC three in Kashmir, but both the parties drew a blank. The coalition candidates lost the election to the BJP and the PDP with a huge margin. Even NC president and former Union Minister Farooq Abdullah suffered a massive defeat. The decision has rattled the NC and the Congress because it irwill surely mar the poll prospects in Jammu province and Ladakh region and help the BJP to a considerable extent in both the regions.
The NC has some support-base in the mountainous areas of Jammu province and Ladakh region and the Congress has its support-base in both the provinces, notwithstanding the fact that both the parties suffered a humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha election. It is important to note that the constituency of the PDP and the Congress and the NC is the same. It is obvious that there will be a three-way split in this constituency. The three-way split in the Valley will not effect the poll prospects of the PDP. In fact, it would help it. It would not be out of place to mention here that the PDP led in more than 35 Assembly segments in the just-concluded Lok Sabha election despite the fact that the NC and the Congress contested the election together. The PDP got nearly 20 per cent votes and the NC-Congress candidates only 11.1 per cent votes in Kashmir. In Jammu province, the vote share of the Congress was around 20 per cent, which also included the NC votes, whatever be the number. Similarly, the three-way split in Jammu and Ladakh will help the BJP increase its tally. The BJP had secured more than 32 per cent of the total votes polls - nearly 2 per cent more as compared to the combined votes tally of the Congress and the NC. The NC and Congress leadership knew it and that's the reason that there are leaders in both the parties who want their parties to forge a pre-poll alliance to keep the PDP and BJP out of power. |
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