 Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 15: Two back-to-back media interactions of top National Conference leaders on Thursday confirmed that the party will not leave three seats of the Kashmir Valley for the coalition partners at any cost.
Within minutes after the National Conference president Dr. Farooq Abdullah declared that his party would contest the coming Lok Sabha elections on its own, former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah started a damage-control exercise and announced that his party would never leave the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc.
While announcing to be inseparable part and parcel of the INDIA bloc to defeat the BJP, Omar Abdullah also declared that his party would not leave three seats of the Kashmir Valley for coalition partners.
“If the INDIA alliance intends to stop the BJP from retaining three Lok Sabha seats of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir then there is no need to hold discussions of three seats of Kashmir Valley”, Omar said, adding, “Three seats of Kashmir Valley are already with the I > "As far as seat sharing is concerned, I want to make it clear that the National Conference will contest elections on its own. There are no two views about it,”
> "If the INDIA alliance intends to stop the BJP from retaining 3 Lok Sabha seats in J&K then there is no need to hold discussions over three Kashmir seats,"
When his attention was drawn toward the statement of Dr. Farooq Abdullah who announced that NC would contest elections on its own, Omar said that the party president’s statement was just a reflection of the cadre’s emotions.
“As far as NC’s joining the NDA is concerned we are not the party that has its feet in multiple boats. I would like to make it categorically clear that no door, no window not even a crack is open for NDA. Once we make friends we stick to them, our commitment to the INDIA alliance remains”, Omar said.
Earlier Dr Farooq Abdullah announced the National Conference will not enter into any pre-poll alliance. Talking to reporters the NC president in Srinagar said that he wants to make it clear that NC is not going to enter into any alliance with any party. “As far as seat sharing is concerned, I want to make it clear that the National Conference will contest elections on its own. There are no two views about it,” he said. | 