Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 9: Encouraged by the guarded silence maintained by the local Congress leaders, the National Conference leadership has started mounting pressure on the coalition partners to leave maximum Lok Sabha seats for the party.
Highly placed sources said that the central leadership of the Congress has not given any signal to the local leaders so they (local leaders) also hesitating to give any statement on seat sharing.
Earlier some local Congress leaders were staking claims on the majority of the Lok Sabha seats in J&K but due to the cold shoulder response of the high command most of these leaders have maintained a silence.
“Instead of giving us any signal about seat-sharing talks in J&K, our central leaders are themselves confused. Neither they are asking us to start preparation for all seats nor they have started seat-sharing talks with the constituents of the INDIA bloc in J&K”, a senior Congress leader told the Early Times.
Central Congress leadership has not given any signal to the local leaders
Local leaders are also hesitating to give any statement on seat sharing.
Congress has virtually become directionless in J&K due to the attitude of central leadership.
The Congress leader admitted that the National Conference was taking benefit of the “weak” leadership and now NC leaders have started staking claims on four of six Lok Sabha seats of J&K.
Important to mention here that on Wednesday Omar Abdullah said that there will be talks within the Congress-led INDIA bloc only on three parliamentary seats that were won by the BJP in the last elections from Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
“There has been no talk on seat-sharing (within the INDIA alliance) so far. Congress is ready for the talks and they want us to talk to them. In the coming days, there will be a discussion, especially about the three seats which are with the BJP,” Omar told reporters here.
In the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP has won Ladakh, Udhampur-Doda and Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seats. | 