Haji Hanifa Jan likely to be Congress-NC’s joint candidate for Ladakh Lok Sabha seat

NC leadership confirms unique idea; Congyet to make formal announcement

Jammu: In order to give a practical shape to their unique idea of an alliance for parliamentary elections, the National Conference (NC) and the Congress are most likely to field the NC’s Kargil district president and former councilor, Haji Hanifa Jan as the joint candidate of two parties for the lone Lok Sabha seat of Ladakh.
If sources are to be believed, the Kargil units of Congress and National Conference have reached a consensus over the name of former councilor and senior NC leader Haji Hanifa Jan for Ladakh Lok Sabha seat which two parties are contesting in alliance “to ensure the defeat of the BJP candidate Tashi Gyalson”.
“We have finalized the name of Haji Hanifa Jan for the Ladakh seat and he will be the joint candidate of two parties (Congress and NC),” Qamar Ali Akhoon, former minister and senior leader of NC confirmed The News Now.
The Congress party high command, however, is yet to make a formal announcement with regard to the nomination of Haji Hanifa Jan, a NC leader, as its candidate for the Ladakh seat.
Sajjad Kargili, a senior leader of Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), however, sought to clarify that the KDA leaders were not consulted by the NC and the Congress before finalizing their candidate.
“I've been receiving numerous calls asking whether the Kargil Democratic Alliance has been consulted regarding the selection of the Ladakh Lok Sabha candidate. As a core committee member of the Kargil Democratic Alliance, I'd like to clarify that both JKNC and INC India have independently selected their candidates for the Ladakh Lok Sabha seat within their respective parties. As of now, not a single meeting of KDA was held on this matter,” Kargili wrote on ‘X’.
Sources claimed that the Congress leadership in Kargil, without taking its counterpart in Leh district into confidence, decided to accept the NC’s proposal of fielding its leader on the party’s (Congress) mandate from the seat.
“The Leh Congress president and former minister Nawang Rigzin Jora has forwarded the names of three councilors in Leh Council to be considered for Ladakh seat. Jora has been insisting that a Congress leader, especially Buddhist, from Leh district should be given mandate so that the party could register victory over the seat,” sources said.
Pertinently, The News Now had exclusively reported in its April 29 edition that Ladakh unit of the NC has come up with a unique idea of an alliance with the Congress party in the region wherein its senior leader is likely to contest the Lok Sabha elections on Congress mandate “to ensure the defeat of the BJP candidate”. This was being done to curtail the open revolt within the party against the high command’s decision to allocate the Ladakh seat to the Congress party.
As per the seat-sharing formula between the two parties, the NC would contest Anantnag-Rajouri, Central Kashmir (Srinagar) and North Kashmir (Baramulla) parliamentary seats while the Congress has been allocated three seats, including Jammu-Reasi, Kathua-Udhampur-Doda and Ladakh.
Sources said that the NC leadership including its workers and cadre was not happy with the party high command’s decision and discussed it with the Congress party. It came up with the proposal that no controversial candidate (from two parties) should be given a mandate for the Lok Sabha seat. Congress leadership was convinced that the NC candidate from Kargil district should contest on their (Congress) mandate to respect the “coalition dharma” so that the alliance partners could easily defeat the BJP candidate.
Leh is predominantly inhabited by Buddhists while Kargil district is dominated by Shia Muslims. Two districts are ideologically poles apart and a verdict divide between two districts is noticed at the time of Lok Sabha elections.
Pertinently, the Ladakh unit of the NC was exerting pressure on the Congress to nominate the joint candidate of two alliance partners for Ladakh Lok Sabha seat from the Kargil district only, if the grand-old party really intends to avoid division of votes in the region. For this, the leaders of NC and Congress have had several rounds of parleys to reach a consensus.
While the Congress party is contemplating fielding its senior leader and former minister, Nawang Rigzin Jora from the seat, the NC leaders in Kargil felt any decision to field a Buddhist candidate from Leh would prove counterproductive and would cost them heavily in Lok Sabha polls.
In October last year, the NC emerged as the single largest political party in the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) Kargil by bagging 12 seats out of a total 17 on which it fielded its candidates while the Congress stood second with 10 seats.
On last Friday, the Election Commission of India issued a notification for the conduct of polling on the Ladakh seat. As per the notification, the candidates can file their nomination papers till May 3, while the last day of withdrawing their nominations is May 6. The polling on the seat will take place on May 20.
Updated On 5/1/2024 1:12:22 AM