news details |
|
|
| NC likely to field Shariq in Baramulla, Dr Kamal in Hazratbal Yasin Shah in Sonwar, | | Salman Sagar tipped to confront Ansari in Srinagar | |
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, Apr 12: While PDP today announced to field a seniormost political leader and Shia cleric, Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, as its candidate in the all-important Srinagar-Budgam Lok Sabha constituency, ruling National Conference (NC) is likely to introduce the juniormost, Salman Sagar---Mayor of Srinagar and son of the senior party leader Ali Mohammad Sagar. Contrary to a many speculations, Sharief-ud-din Shariq, and former MLA, Mohammad Yasin Shah, are likely to get mandate respectively for Baramulla-Kupwara Lok Sabha seat and Sonwar Assembly segment and Dr Mustafa Kamal is tipped to be NC’s candidate for Hazratbal Assembly segment.
NC’s President, Dr Farooq Abdullah, and General Secretary, Sheikh Nazir Ahmed, today concluded a 3-day series of detailed interaction with their party activists, Ministers and legislators and officer-bearers of Tehsil, District and Provincial bodies at Nawa-e-Subah. On Friday and Saturday, the NC leadership deliberated on the election scenario and potential candidates in North and Central Kashmir respectively. Today was the day of the senior NC leaders asking party workers and legislators in South Kashmir to run a sustained campaign “in order to uproot PDP from its traditional stronghold”.
While Dr Abdullah and Sheikh Nazir were concluding the proceedings, PDP President, Mehbooba Mufti, ended weeks of guesswork in the state political circles and announced that none other than Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari would be her party’s candidate in the Lok Sabha constituency of Srinagar-Budgam. PDP had already announced Pir Mohammad Hussain and Mohammad Dilawar Mir as the candidates in Anantnag-Pulwama and Baramulla-Kupwara constituencies respectively. It had also announced Asiya Naqash and Mohammad Ashraf Mir as the Opposition party’s candidates in Hazratbal and Sonwar Assembly segments respectively.
On the other hand, NC had declared the name of only one of its candidates when Dr Mehhboob Beg filed his nomination papers in Anantnag-Pulwama, following his party’s surrender before the junior coalition partner Congress on the safest seat of Ladakh.
Highly-placed sources in the state political establishment disclosed to Early Times that participants of the NC meeting on all the three days authorized Dr Abdullah to take his decision and nominate candidates for all the Lok Sabha and Assembly seats. Sources said that about a dozen names of sitting MLAs, MLCs, Ministers, Rajya Sabha Members and defeated candidates of the Assembly elections of December 2008, as also few others, were proposed and brought under consideration.
Sources said that after the entire exercise, topmost leadership in the NC decided to field senior leader and Cabinet Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar’s son, Salman Sagar, as the candidate against Maulvi Iftikhar in Srinagar-Budgam. Twenty-six-year-old, Salman Sagar had successfully contested elections for Srinagar Municipal Corporation in 2005. He is currently serving his second one-year term as the Mayor in Srinagar. Sources said that Ali Mohammad Sagar and his supporters in the party succeeded in projecting Salman Sagar as the “potential candidate” and Omar Abdullah’s successor in the Parliament.
However, two of the seniormost leaders in the party were still busy in projecting former Chief Secretary Sheikh Ghulam Rasool as the candidate for Srinagar-Budgam.
Sources said that the NC leadership was “most likely” to field Sharief-ud-din Shariq as the party candidate in Baramulla-Kupwara. Shariq had been defeated in recent Assembly elections by an Independent candidate, Sheikh Abdul Rashid, in Langet segment of Kupwara district which he had represented in the previous Legislative Assembly. Shariq has also been MLA from Karnah and a member of Rajya Sabha in the past.
According to these sources, NC’s defeated candidate from Tangmarg and Dr Abdullah’s younger brother, Dr Sheikh Mustafa Kamal, would be the party’s candidate for the Assembly segment of Hazratbal. In a dramatic development, all the potential candidates, including Ali Mohammad Watali and Sheikh Ghulam Rasool, have dropped to the tail-end and none other former MLA, Mohammad Yasin Shah, is likely to be NC’s candidate in Sonwar Assembly segment. Shah had earlier, in 2002, successfully contested the Assembly elections from Sonwar.
In December 2008 Assembly elections, both the former MLAs from Hazratbal and Sonwar, namely Mohammad Sayeed Akhoon and Mohammad Yasin Shah, had failed to get a ticket as Dr Abdullah himself had contested the elections from both the segments. He was returned from both. Later, Dr Abdullah resigned as he was elected for a seat in Rajya Sabha. For the last several weeks, there were strong speculations of his contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Srinagar-Budgam.
Sources said that Dr Abdullah and other senior leaders of the party would announce the names of the candidates for both the Lok Sabha and both the Assembly seats at a news conference here at 1130 hours on Monday.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
