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| Srinagar no more bastion of NC, party fares badly in recent DDC polls | | Party manages to just win one seat from Srinagar, two seats in municipal polls | | Jehangir Rashid
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Dec 28: Not long ago Srinagar was the bastion of National Conference (NC) and the party would sweep the assembly polls as and when the elections were held. However, the 2014 assembly elections changed the dynamics of politics in Srinagar with Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) taking centre stage.
In the 2014 assembly polls PDP won five seats out of eight seats from Srinagar with NC bagging three. Six years down the line the situation has not changed and NC continues to struggle to hold on to its traditional bastion. Same got proved during the recent District Development Council (DDC) and local body elections.
The only difference this time around was that independents won 50 percent of the DDC seats and in local body elections 50 percent seats were won by candidates belonging to parties other than NC. Independents won seven seats in DDC polls while as in local body elections Apni Party and PDP won a seat each while as NC got two seats. Since then one independent has joined the Apni Party.
While elections were held in 14 DDC constituencies of Srinagar polls were also held in four municipal wards of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC). In the DDC polls independents won from Harwan-I, Harwan-II, Harwan-IV, Harwan-VI, Srinagar-I, Qamarwari-I and Qamarwari-II seats. Apni Party won three seats while NC, PDP, BJP and JKPM got one seat each in these elections.
In the local body elections Salman Ali Sagar son of NC General Secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar won from Soura and Solina municipal wards of SMC while Mohammad Ashraf Dar of Apni Party and Rehana Parvez of PDP won respectively from Rawalpora and Islamyarbal wards of the Srinagar district. It remains to be seen which seat would be vacated by Salman following which election would be held there. It seems he was not confident about his win and as such he chose to fight elections from two wards.
Over the years NC has failed to come up with fresh faces and the party has been banking upon leaders like Ali Mohammad Sagar, Mubarak Gul, Shameem Firdous and Nasir Aslam Wani to win from Srinagar. The party has all along being banking on the ‘charisma’ of its President Dr. Farooq Abdullah to win seats in Kashmir valley more so from Srinagar.
Given the fact that party has not been faring well in the Srinagar district the rank and file has to pull up the socks so that NC could win some seats from the summer capital district of Jammu & Kashmir. For the same it is important that fresh faces are introduced and given mandate for the assembly elections as and when they are conducted. The emergence of Apni Party is also posing a challenge to NC. |
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