Left in cold by INDIA in J-K polls, Mehbooba says will support NC-Cong if it backs ‘PDP agenda’

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti, said Saturday that in the upcoming J&K Assembly polls the PDP “will extend complete electoral support to the National Conference (NC)-Congress alliance if it accepts the PDP’s pro-people agenda”. Mufti said her party would welcome an alliance “based on an agenda seeking a resolution of the Kashmir issue”, but not for elections and seat-sharing arrangements. She made these statements while releasing the PDP’s poll manifesto at the party headquarters in Srinagar. Significantly, the Congress and the NC announced their alliance for all 90 Assembly seats in J&K on Thursday, when Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi met the NC top brass at its president Farooq Abdullah’s residence in Srinagar. The NC and the Congress are now engaged in discussions to finalise their seat-sharing deal while keeping the PDP out of it, mirroring their course of action in the recent Lok Sabha polls. Although these three parties are constituents of the Opposition INDIA alliance, the NC and the PDP remain staunch opponents on the ground in the Valley. She claimed that the NC-Congress alliance is not based on a common agenda but merely on seat-sharing. “We will not discuss any such alliance only for seats. Our alliance should be based on an agenda, which is Jammu Kashmir ki samasya ka samadhaan (resolution of the J&K issue) under the provisions of the Constitution.