The People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (Gupkar Alliance) members failed to finalise their seat-sharing arrangement for the District Development Council polls yet again on November 14 despite holding a marathon meeting, the third one in two days, on the issue.
The seat-sharing issue defying a resolution appeared to be exasperating for the two key constituents of the PAGD with its vice-chairperson and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti reminding the alliance that it has a bigger cause to fight for than to bicker over the DDC elections.
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JKPC chairman Sajad Lone too rued that the statesmanship and magnanimity is still a missing trait in our polity .
In a related development earlier during the day, as per the sources, PDP founder member Muzaffar Hussain Baig resigned from the party following the disagreement over the seat-sharing for the DDC elections.
The PAGD meeting which lasted for several hours at the National Conference headquarters ‘Nawa-i-Subah’ in Srinagar concluded late on November 14, a PAGD leader said.
He said the meeting was part of the consultations between the parties of the alliance for the upcoming DDC polls.
The seat-sharing has become a key hurdle in the discussions in the alliance as the three meetings over the last two days have remained inconclusive.
“We concluded the meeting around 10 p.m., but no final decision has been taken. The meeting remained inconclusive,” the leader said.
The alliance partners will meet again on November 15 to chalk out the future course of action and discuss the seat-sharing arrangements further, he added.
Amid the PAGD meeting, Ms. Mufti said the alliance was formed solely to safeguard the identity of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and its constituents have a bigger cause to fight for than to bicker over DDC elections.
“PAGD was formed solely to safeguard the identity of people of J&K that has been under constant attack since Aug 2019. To assume (that) it was created for the petty electoral gains or to further party interests is erroneous. We have a bigger cause to fight for than to bicker over DDC elections,” Ms. Mufti tweeted.
The alliance has announced the seat-sharing arrangement for the first phase of the polls as per which the National Conference will contest on 21 seats out of 27, while the PDP will fight on four seats and Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Conference (JKPC) on two.
Reacting to Ms. Mufti’s tweet, Mr. Lone, the JKPC chairman, said the reality was that statesmanship and magnanimity is still a missing trait in our polity .
“I agree with every word and would further add that the reality, as it exists, is that statesmanship and magnanimity is still a missing trait in our polity. And the absence is being felt more than any other time,” Mr. Lone said.
