news details |
|
|
| NC likely to announce candidates in 2 days | | Dilawar Mir, Pir Hussain are PDP’s nominees in Valley | |
ET Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Apr 6: With just three days left for the last moment of filing nomination papers in the South Kashmir constituency, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) today announced to field Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s confidante, Pir Mohammad Hussain, in Anantnag-Pulwama and former Minister, Mohammad Dilawar Mir, in the North Kashmir constituency of Baramulla-Kupwara.
At the end of a 4-day series of meetings at the Gupkar Road residence of the Muftis, PDP President, Mehbooba Mufti, disclosed to mediapersons that her party had given its ticket to Dilawar Mir in North Kashmir and Pir Hussain in South Kashmir. She said that a sitting councilor in Srinagar Municipal Corporation, Asiya Naqash, would the PDP’s candidate yet again from the Assembly segment of Hazrat. Candidates for Srinagar Lok Sabha seat and Sonwar Assembly segment would be introduced shortly, she said.
A senior political activist, Dilawar Mir has been representing his home constituency of Rafiabad in Baramulla district in the Legislative Assembly continuously since 1977 (with the exception of 1987-1990 period) when he had contested his first elections as a National Conference (NC) candidate. Then Chief Minister Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah had inducted him as a junior Minister in his government. He later retained the seat in 1983 Assembly elections but was among 12 MLAs of the party who shifted their loyalties to Mr Ghulam Mohammad Shah and installed him as leader of NC’s rebel group and Chief Minister after getting Dr Farooq Abdullah dismissed with the help of Congress party.
Like all of his colleagues, who formed NC (Khalida), which was ultimately christened as Awami National Conference (ANC), Mir was appointed as a Cabinet Minister in the GM Shah-headed Congress-supported government. Even as he contested as an Independent and lost to the NC candidate in 1987, he was returned as Janata Dal candidate in 1996. Later he returned to NC and won 2002 Assembly elections on that party’s ticket. However, Mir later quit the NC again and resigned as MLA before joining PDP in 2004-05. In 2006 by-elections, he was again returned as MLA from Rafiabad, this time on PDP’s ticket. He functioned as a Cabinet Minister in the PDP-Congress governments headed by Mufti Sayeed and Ghulam Nabi Azad.
For the first time after his one-odd defeat in 1987, Dilawar lost elections in 2008. He was defeated by a young politician, Javed Ahmed Dar, who had lately shifted from PDP to the NC.
A former Assistant Commissioner Development, Pir Mohammad Hussain shot into prominence before the Assembly elections of 2002 which he contested and won on PDP’s ticket from his home segment of Shangus in Anantnag district. He too functioned as a Minister of State in the PDP-Congress coalition government. He, however, vacated the seat for his son-in-law, Pir Mansoor Ahmed, who won the 2008 Assembly elections against heavy odds. Sources insist that Pir Hussain had compromised only after getting an assurance that he would get the party’s ticket for the PDP’s safest seat of Anantnag in the next Lok Sabha elections.
Asiya Naqash, who was defeated by NC’s Dr Farooq Abdullah in Hazratbal in 2008, happens to be the sister-in-law of senior PDP leader, Tariq Hameed Qarra. While Qarra was defeated by the NC in Batmaloo and his sister-in-law in Hazratbal, his wife was defeated by the NC candidate in Iddgah. Both, his wife as well as his sister-in-law are PDP’s sitting councilors in Srinagar Municipal Corporation.
Meanwhile, sources said that NC was likely to announce its candidates for all three of its Lok Sabha seats as well as the Assembly seats of Sonwar and Hazratbal in the next two days. Sources said that former Chief Secretary Sheikh Ghulam Rasool was the first probable from Srinagar-Budgam but senior NC leader and a Cabinet Minister, Ali Mohammad Sagar, had also begun to project his son, Salman Sagar, presently Srinagar Mayor, for the key constituency.
END
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
