Pre-poll alliance with Congress in J&K, confirms Farooq Abdullah

Srinagar, Aug 22 (IANS) Former J&K Chief Minister and president of National Conference Dr Farooq Abdullah said on Thursday that a pre-poll alliance between the Congress and the NC has been finalised and paperwork was being finalised.

"Alliance on all 90 Assembly seats between the two parties has been formed. Paperwork to be finalised by tonight. Congress, NC and CPI(M) are together. We will work together and fight the elections. We are hopeful that statehood will be returned. No doors are closed for anyone," said Dr Abdullah.

He told reporters that an alliance has been made and the parties will issue mandates to their candidates in a phased manner.

Earlier, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge called on Dr Farooq Abdullah at his high-security Gupkar Road residence here.

Former chief minister and NC vice president Omar Abdullah was also present during the meeting at his father’s residence.

After the meeting, Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and K.C. Venugopal met the Congress leaders and workers at a local hotel in Srinagar.

Addressing the Congress workers, Rahul Gandhi said, “You are not workers, you are family. As soon as we got to know that elections were going to be held, we first decided to come here to Jammu and Kashmir because we wanted to give a message to the people that for us the representation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and their statehood is the most important thing."

“In the history of India, after Independence, many union territories have been converted into states, but there is only one example when statehood was taken away and a union territory was created. This has never happened before and we want to give this message that the representation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir is important, it is important for us and it is important for the country,” Gandhi said.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge told the workers, “We want to take the entire opposition along.” He said that Congress is committed to ensuring the return of Statehood.

He said that in J&K, BJP couldn’t ensure elections. “BJP announced polls under pressure in the wake of Supreme Court directions. I want to put it on record that the BJP can’t suppress the peoples’ voices anymore in J&K. Congress is committed to working for the welfare of the people of J&K. The UT has witnessed unprecedented unemployment. Tall claims of BJP that post Article 370, terrorism has been wiped out in J&K, have fallen flat. Infiltration has gone up and terrorism incidents have also witnessed a spike,” he said.

Rahul Gandhi later left for the Jammu division where he will address workers and interact with party workers and leaders regarding the upcoming Assembly elections.

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