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| 6 in fray for house of elders | | Soz, Farooq, Azad set to enter Rajya Sabha; intense contest for fourth seat | | Shafi Uri, AV Gupta also file papers
Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 3: As five candidates today filed their nomination papers taking the strength of contestants to six, the Pradesh Congress Committee chief and Union Water Resources Minister Prof Saifuddin Soz and two former Chief Ministers Dr Farooq Abdullah of National Conference and Ghulam Nabi Azad of Congress are all set to enter Rajya Sabha while there will be an interesting contest on the fourth seat.
Including Soz, Farooq and Azad four candidates today filed their nomination papers as joint candidates of National Conference-Congress coalition while one candidate was fielded by the BJP. The fourth coalition nominee was veteran National Conference leader Mohammad Shafi Uri. BJP has fielded Advocate AV Gupta as its candidate for a symbolic contest.
Today was the last date for filing nomination papers. Syed Altaf Hussain Bukhari has already filed his nomination papers on Monday as candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Earlier it was widely believed that the coalition will concede one seat to the Peoples Democratic Party to reciprocate the gesture of 2002 when the coalition of that time under Mufti Mohammad Sayeed as Chief Minister allowed NC leader Dr Farooq Abdullah to bag the Rajya Sabha seat without any contest. Till Tuesday the in-principle agreement between the coalition partners was that National Conference will contest on two seats, Congress on one seat and the fourth will be offered to the Opposition Peoples Democratic Party. The Congress, it is learnt, put a last minute pressure to accommodate Ghulam Nabi Azad thus making it a strong contest on the fourth seat.
The ruling coalition has fielded candidates for all the four seats, though it can win only three because of the three separate notifications for polls - one each for two seats and a third for the two remaining seats.
The NC-Congress alliance has support of 48 members including two nominated women members and two other legislators - Ghulam Hassan Mir of the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Party and Hakeem Mohammad Yasin of the Peoples Democratic Front.
The PDP has 21 members and support of two Independent legislators taking its number to 23, while the BJP has an effective strength of 11. However, the BJP candidate is expected to get the support of the four other legislators - three of Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party and one of Jammu State Morcha.
There will be a contest for the fourth seat and given the combination and strength of parties, the PDP candidate stands to benefit.
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