Jammu, March 17: The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has opened channels with the Congress high command to offer the party unconditional support in the Jammu province for the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
“The party leadership is mulling over supporting the Congress nominees on the two Lok Sabha seats of the Jammu province — Jammu-Poonch and Udhampur-Doda,” said a senior PDP leader on condition of anonymity. “Our party has offered support to the Congress to ensure a straight fight between two national parties on the parliamentary seats of the Jammu province,” the PDP leader said.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, PDP candidate Yash Pal Sharma had secured 1,68,554 votes from the Jammu-Poonch seat, while the party nominee for the Udhampur-Doda seat, Mohammad Arshad Malik, had got 30,461 votes.
The PDP’s support to Congress will be crucial because the latter had lost the Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat by 2,87,280 votes and the Udhampur-Doda seat by 60,976 votes.
The PDP has a strong base in the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri which are part of the Jammu-Poonch parliamentary constituency. The party’s presence is negligible in the Udhampur-Doda seat.
“Our support will be confined only to two parliamentary seats of the Jammu province,” he said, adding discussions between leaders of both parties are on.
“Although we have already prepared panels of candidates for the two Lok Sabha seats of the Jammu province, the party leadership has given this proposal to the Congress only to teach the BJP a lesson,” he said. He said the party leadership had discussed pros and cons before giving the proposal to the Congress as it was not in a position to win any of the two seats.
Sources said PDP president and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti would arrive in Jammu on March 19 to hold discussions on finalising the candidates for the Lok Sabha elections.
“Everything will be clear after the party president’s visit to Jammu,” a source said, adding that Jammu-based senior party leaders have given their consent to the proposal of leaving the Jammu province seats for the Congress as a ‘goodwill gesture’.
