Omar, Mehbooba reach Bengaluru; to attend opposition meeting

Srinagar, Jul 17: After participating in the last month’s opposition’s unity meeting in Bihar’s Patna, former chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti have reached Karnataka’s Bengaluru to attend the second round of the high-profile opposition meeting on Monday.
Reports said that PDP president Mehbooba Mufti has arrived in Bengaluru today afternoon to attend the mega opposition meeting, while NC vice president Omar Abdullah too arrived in the evening.
On reaching Bengaluru, Omar, while speaking to the media, said that he hopes something more substantial will be done in the meeting.
“I haven’t seen the agenda for the meeting yet, let’s see what agenda is put in front of us, I hope that something more substantive will be done in this meeting”, Omar said.
There were reports too that Member Parliament from Srinagar and NC President Farooq Abdullah may attend the opposition meeting as well, but a party spokesman confirmed that only NC vice president Omar Abdullah is participating in the meeting.
According to political observers, it would be interesting to see whether there would be an electoral arrangement between National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Jammu & Kashmir.
Sources within the National Conference said that the party is unlikely to benefit from an electoral arrangement with the People’s Democratic Party in Kashmir Valley as “its presence is mainly confined to areas of south Kashmir.”
“Nothing has been decided yet,” a senior NC leader said when asked about the possibility of alliance with PDP.
In the 2019 Parliamentary polls, National Conference had won all three Lok Sabha seats of Jammu & Kashmir.
Peoples Democratic Party had fared badly in the polls and finished at third position in Anantnag and fourth in Baramulla. The party was a distant runner-up in the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat.
Notably, various top opposition parties have gathered for a 2-day joint meeting in Bengaluru from today. The leaders of at least 26 opposition parties are attending the meeting.
Pertinently, the Bengaluru meeting comes less than a month after the first such high-profile meeting that was held in Bihar’s Patna. The Opposition unity meeting is aimed at deciding their strategy to take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.