news details |
|
|
| AICC calm but JKPCC unhappy over Leh MP’s joining NC | | Hassan Khan does to Cong what Namgyal did to NC in 1989 | |
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, May 18: National Conference’s proxy candidate in Ladakh, Ghulam Hassan Khan, who defeated senior Congress leader and the ruling coalition’s official candidate, Phonsog Namgyal, in the just concluded Lok Sabha elections has quickly returned to his flock but his admission into Dr Farooq Abdullah’s party has caused perceptible discomfiture in the Jammu & Kashmir unit of Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s party. NC is, however, understood to have got its prodigal son back with a quiet consent from 10-Janpath and his “unconditional support” has been interpreted as an achievement for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
Just two days back, Early Times had reported that well on the pattern of Namgyal’s act in 1989, history would repeat itself and Khan would return to his party, NC, in a few days, though much would depend on the coalition partner’s reaction. Meticulously informed sources in the political establishment today revealed to this newspaper that Khan had been admitted into the NC only after Chief Minister Omar Abdullah himself sought AICC’s consent to the elected MP’s “unconditional support to UPA”.
As reported, in the seat sharing in1989 Lok Sabha elections, then ruling coalition of NC and Congress had allotted Leh-Kargil seat to NC, which had fielded Mohammad Hassan Commander from Ladakh. However, Congress clandestinely supported its senior leader, Namgyal, who had ostensibly jumped into the fray as an independent candidate. In days of his defeating the NC-supported candidate, Namgyal had been admitted back into Congress. At today’s news conference, organized on occasion of Khan’s return to NC, Dr Farooq Abdullah referred to the 1989 episode and observed that history was just repeating itself.
Sources said that Khan’s admission into NC at Dr Abdullah’s and Omar Abdullah’s joint press conference sent waves of dismay into the state unit of Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s party. As Namgyal is understood to have taken exception to Khan’s “dubious contest”, followed by his formal admission into NC, his party colleague and Minister of Tourism in Omar Abdullah’s Cabinet, Nawang Rigzin Jora, has reportedly agitated the matter not only with senior JKPCC leadership but also with his patrons in the AICC. Sources said that JKPCC chief, Prof Saif-ud-din Soz, and a number of his senior colleagues in the party were unhappy over the development but they have decided not to react publicly before discussing the whole situation with the party high command.
New Delhi is said to have opted silence as UPA was desperately in need of winning unconditional support from about a dozen independent MPs that would neutralize Congress party’s constraint of seeking the support of two national level parties. Senior leaders in the party have indicated that Congress would prefer the support of individual independent members to that of a regional or national level party. There is an argument that independent MPs could be aligned to the alliance without granting them berths in the Council of Ministers.
Nevertheless, JKPCC’s negative reaction forced AICC to immediately get a “clarification” from the NC that Khan had simply “offered his unconditional support to UPA” and he had not formally joined Dr Abdullah’s party. Killing Dr Abdullah’s, Omar Abdullah’s and his own explicit statement at the press conference, Khan was forced to do a lot of labour in issuing “clarifications” that he had merely offered his “unconditional support to UPA” through the NC and had not joined any political party.
In a dramatic mixture of paradox and irony, Congress has lost Kargil in days of its building prestige on getting this seat. Congress leadership had forced NC to surrender Ladakh even as Dr Abdullah’s party had bagged three of the four seats in Ladakh region in the Assembly elections of 2008. Jora was one-odd Congress candidate who had been returned from Ladakh. While Ladakh was then considered to be the ruling coalition’s “safest seat”, PDP’s stronghold of Anantnag-Pulwama in South Kashmir had been rated by both, NC and Congress, as the alliance’s “weakest seat”.
Interestingly when the results were declared on May 16th, NC emerged victorious from South Kashmir but Congress was defeated by Khan in Ladakh. With this development, NC has now got four seats against two only by Congress.
Former Union Minister of State for Tourism and former Deputy Chairman of J&K Legislative Council, Namgyal has been NC’s bete noire for the last 28 years. In his long political career, Nagyal has won four Lok Sabha elections against NC but lost twice. In the mid-term general elections of 1980, he had contested as an Independent and defeated NC’s Habibullah Khan. In 1984, he contested as Congress candidate and defeated NC’s Qamar Ali Akhoon. In 1989, he contested as an Independent but enjoyed Congress party’s support that helped him defeat Mohammad Hassan Commander. Scoring his 4th successive victory for Congress, Namgyal once again defeated NC-backed Qamar Ali Akhoon in 1996.
However, NC’s Syed Hussain trounced Congress party’s Namgyal in the Lok Sabha elections of 1998. Next year, Ghulam Hassan Khan retired as DIG in J&K Police and joined NC. In 1999, Khan slammed a crushing defeat on the former LBA chief, Thuptsan Chhewang, who contested on Congress ticket. LUTF-supported Chhewang turned the tables in 2004 and managed to defeat Khan in 2004. Now, NC-supported Khan has once again defeated Namgyal. Support from Kargil’s influential Islamia School has played a key role in Khan’s victory, even as former LAHDC (Kargil) chief, Asgar Ali Karbalayi succeeded in cutting away a sizeable chunk of the Muslim vote in Kargil-Zanaskar belt.
END
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
