NATIONAL Conference (NC) chief Farooq Abdullah will not be seeking renomination for the Rajya Sabha, with four seats to the Upper House from Jammu and Kashmir due for elections on October 24.
The NC Friday announced candidates for three of the seats, with talks on to leave the fourth to ally Congress.
NC general secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar said the party high command had finalised the names of Chowdhary Mohammad Ramzan, Shammi Oberoi and Sajad Kitchloo for the Rajya Sabha. “The NC has kept one seat open, and talks are on with the Congress,” he said.
Senior NC leader Nasir Aslam Wani, who is advisor to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, said a decision on the fourth seat will be taken in “the next two days”.
On Farooq Abdullah, Wani said: “He will not be in Parliament this time. We feel we need him more in J&K at the moment than in Delhi.”
Of the candidates announced by the NC, Chowdhary Ramzan is a senior party leader from Kupwara who lost last year’s Assembly elections to Sajad Lone (People’s Conference), while Sajad Kitchloo is a former NC legislator from Kishtwar who also lost in the state polls, to the BJP’s lone woman legislator, Shagun Parihar. Oberoi has long served as the NC treasurer and has worked closely with Omar.
In the 90-member J&K Assembly, the NC has 41 MLAs, followed by 28 of the BJP, 6 of the Congress, 3 of the PDP, 1 each of the CPI(M), J&K People’s Conference and Aam Aadmi Party, and 7 Independents. Two seats are vacant, one due to Omar vacating Budgam and retaining the Ganderbal seat from which he had also won in the 2024 Assembly polls, and the second due to the death of BJP Nagrota MLA Devender Singh Rana last year.
Apart from the Congress, the NC is banking on the support of CPI(M) MLA M Y Tarigami and five Independents – which works out to a total of 53 MLAs – for the Rajya Sabha elections.
This means it can win two of the Rajya Sabha seats easily. But a contest is expected between the NC and BJP for the other two seats, making the votes of the non-BJP Opposition bloc comprising the PDP (3), AAP (1), People’s Conference (1) and 2 Independents crucial. Of them, the AAP’s sole legislator, Mehraj Malik, is jailed and will need court permission to be allowed to vote.
The PDP’s 3 MLAs and the Independents Khursheed Ahmed Sheikh (Langate) and Shabir Ahmad Kullay (Shopian) are unlikely to back the BJP due to popular sentiments in their political constituencies in Kashmir. Since even an abstention may send the wrong signal, they could support the NC-led coalition.
The twist in the tale could be the 5 nominated MLA seats which are still to be filled by Lt Governor Manoj Sinha. Senior Congress leader Naresh Gupta said that now that the Election Commission has notified the polls, it would be improper if the LG nominated the MLAs now.
Historian and well-known political analyst Prof Hari Om also said that it would not be constitutionally proper for the LG to nominate new members to the Assembly since the election process stands initiated.