Srinagar: In the ongoing Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the National Conference (NC) and Congress stitched an alliance to “keep Bharatiya Janata Party out of power” in Jammu and Kashmir. But, the pre-poll alliance is jittery in the crucial assembly constituency of Srinagar where an NC rival is in direct contest with the alliance candidate, Tariq Hameed Karra.
Karra’s nomination as the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president of Jammu and Kashmir soon after the assembly elections announcement by the Election Commission of India proved a blessing for him as the Congress leadership “bargained hard” with NC the Central Shalteng seat for Kara in the seat-sharing negotiations.
But, Karra and the alliance had a shock when NC’s former legislator Irfan Shah rebelled against the party’s decision and is now contesting as an independent. Irfan Shah, who is the son of former minister and general secretary of NC Ghulam Mohiddin Shah, is among the NC loyalists. But denial of a ticket to him not only sparked his revolt, but also revived an old political rivalry in Batmaloo.
Shahs and Karras are old political rivals in Srinagar, though both have their political seeds in NC, which germinated with NC’s founder Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah.
Shah’s father Ghulam Mohiddin Shah was a former minister and general secretary of the National Conference and legislator from Batmaloo. Karra’s grandfather Ghulam Mohiddin Karra was organisational backbone of NC’s founder Sheikh Abdullah during his heydays; later the two politicians became arch-rivals. Ghulam Mohiddin Karra founded his Political Conference in 1953 after differences with the NC founder. Ghulam Muhammad Sadiq had supported Bakshi Ghulam Muhammad when Sheikh Abdullah was dismissed as the Prime Minister and jailed in 1953 by Jawaharlal Nehru. Sadiq also belonged to the Karra clan.
The Karras were inactive in electoral politics after Tariq Karra’s grandfather Ghulam Mohiddin Karra aged and passed away in 1996. Tariq Karra revived it when he joined NC in 1996 for a brief stint and then joined the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to become its general secretary.
Political rivalry between Shahs and Karras reignited in 2002 when Tariq Karra fought the 2002 assembly elections on a PDP ticket from Batmaloo against Ghulam Mohiddin Shah but lost. In the 2004 by-polls necessitated after the death of Shah, Karra had wrested the seat from NC. Kara was made forest minister in the PDP-Congress coalition government that was headed by PDP patron late Mufti Muhammad Sayeed.
In the 2008 assembly polls, Karra suffered a shocking defeat from Irfan Shah by 2,500 votes. The seat was conquered again by PDP in the 2014 assembly elections when Karra’s close aide, Noor Mohammad Sheikh won the seat by 4000 votes against Irfan Shah. However, Noor Sheikh is now contesting as an independent against Karra after he quit the Apni Party before the elections. He had joined AP in 2021 after leaving PDP.
Karra has also defeated NC president Farooq Abdullah in the 2014 parliament elections from Srinagar when he was a PDP candidate, but he resigned from Lok Sabha and PDP in September 2016 in the aftermath of civilian killings in the protests which erupted after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani.
Kara and Shah are again fighting against each other. Kara, supported by his old workers and the Congress supporters, held his first road show today in the constituency. Shah has been going door to door and holding meetings with the support of loyal NC workers. The NC supporters have decided to side with Shah.
“People of Batmaloo Central have given me love in the past and I hope they repeat the same love in this election also. I have an emotional connection with the people. This is my native constituency,” said Karra, who lives in Shivpora, which falls in the Lalchowk assembly segment. But he has been contesting elections from Batmaloo.
Karra said that people “want that communal forces should be kept out” of Jammu and Kashmir so they will support the alliance. About the independents contesting against him, Karra said that every citizen has a democratic and constitutional right to contest elections, but in Kashmir, there is a “serious conspiracy to fragment votes by fielding independents”.
NC’s rebel Irfan Shah asked why the party’s leadership did not negotiate to have a friendly contest on Shalteng when they decided on five seats. “Party (NC) sacrificed this seat for an alliance for reasons unknown to me. My workers are with me as these people have given their lifetime and sacrifice for the National Conference. Workers pressurised me to contest as independent,” Shah said.
Of the 90 assembly segments, NC and Congress are contesting 83 seats in alliance, and on five the two parties are in a “friendly” contest, while one seat each has been given to CPIM leader Yousuf Tarigami and Harshdev Singh of Panther’s Party.
Both the alliance partners witnessed rebellion by leaders after the seat-sharing list was made public. Though Congress issued show cause notice to its rebels and may face expulsion, yet NC has not said a word against leaders like Shah.
NC workers in Shalteng said when the alliance was being shaped they had met NC President Farooq Abdullah, Vice- President Omar Abdullah and General Secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar to urge them to keep Shalteng in the friendly contest list.
“It is not Irfan Shah, who is contesting, but we NC workers. Irfan Shah is just a face, but it is our election,” said a group of workers in the constituency. “Our leaders sold the Batmaloo constituency but we will not let it go to Congress as NC is in our blood. Our grandfathers have been associated with NC,” they added.
They said that in the parliament elections, which NC and Congress contested as an alliance against the BJP NC secured 18000 votes from the constituency, but claimed that Congress workers “voted against NC candidate in those elections against NC candidate Aga Ruhullah Mehdi.
Srinagar will vote on September 25 in the second phase. Central Shalteng has 107770 registered voters. Will NC’s Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah campaign for Karra to convince the Shalteng voters to elect him or silently side with their loyal Shah?
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