Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 26: All India Congress Committee General Secretary, Ghulam Ahmad Mir, today criticized the National Conference (NC) for what he described as “mishandling” and “lack of seriousness” in the recent Rajya Sabha elections, which resulted in the BJP winning one of the four seats from Jammu and Kashmir despite having fewer numbers in the Assembly.
While talking to reporters in Anantnag, Mir said the Congress had welcomed the notification for the four Rajya Sabha seats, which had been pending for a long time. “The first thing to be happy about was the notification of four Rajya Sabha seats. These four members will now go to the Upper House of Parliament and speak for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who were unrepresented till now,” he said.
However, Mir noted that the results did not match the opposition’s expectations. “Given the composition visible in the Assembly, there was scope for four non-BJP seats. But the result came out as three, and one was lost. Fundamentally, I feel our single largest party, the National Conference, which holds the leadership of the alliance, did not take the fourth seat seriously. It seemed for a long time that they had left that contest midway,” Mir said.
He criticized NC’s lack of follow-up with members who could have influenced the outcome. “One member was in jail but had a postal ballot. No one approached him, and that member was important. One or two members abstained from voting-that should not have happened either; it was a matter of persuasion. And the cross-voting by three or four people-why did it happen, and who did it? It is the responsibility of the leadership that should have coordinated better,” he said.
Mir added that those who betrayed the alliance must be identified. “As the NC itself admitted, some of those who attended meetings, shared meals, and stood with us later stabbed us in the back. They know best who these people are and what elements betrayed the alliance,” he said.
When asked whether he believed the National Conference had deliberately allowed the BJP to win, Mir said, “I will not say they put the seat in BJP’s lap, but the management was entirely in their hands. The political bargaining and coordination had to be done by them because they were the single largest party and had the lead role in this arrangement. The kind of campaigning, outreach, and convincing that should have happened was not done,” he said.
Mir further reiterated that the BJP lacked the numbers to win the seat on its own, suggesting that “cross-voting and internal lapses” within the opposition enabled the party’s victory. He said the NC must reflect on why and how such a lapse occurred, especially when the arithmetic favored the opposition.
The post NC mishandled 4th RS seat, must probe cross-voting: Mir appeared first on Daily Excelsior.