Manzoor-ul-Hassan
Srinagar, Aug 19: Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) chief Tariq Hameed Karra said on Monday that the Congress party was open to forging alliances with like-minded people or parties for upcoming assembly elections in the Union territory.
He claimed that regional parties such as the National Conference (NC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had already established communication channels with the Congress’s central leadership to discuss the pre-poll alliance.
“As far as I know, the National Conference has already approached the central leadership for an alliance,” Karra told reporters at JKPCC headquarters in Srinagar after his return from New Delhi.
He said that the PDP was also in talks with the Congress on the alliance and that “at some level, talks have happened.”
The JKPCC chief said that if the parties—which are part of the INDIA bloc—were of the idea that they have to defeat divisive forces and the BJP, they would come together and succeed.
However, he said the final call would be taken by the five-member committee formed by the high command to decide on the prospects of the alliance.
In reply to a question on rumours that Ghulam Nabi Azad was planning to return to Congress, Karra said “It’s a closed chapter” and that his party, the Democratic Progressive Azad Party, had been “outrightly rejected” by the people who “punished” the outfit for the “idea of leaving the Congress.”
Karra, recently appointed J&K PCC chief by the party high command in Delhi, received a rousing reception at the party headquarters upon his arrival from New Delhi. Besides him, the newly appointed two working presidents, Raman Bhalla and Tara Chand, were also felicitated at the event.
They were flanked by senior party leaders, including Ghulam Ahmad Mir, Peerzada Muhammad Sayeed, GN Monga, and Muhammad Anwar Bhat, who also spoke on the occasion and congratulated Karra on his new assignment.
Later, addressing the party workers, Karra said that his foremost focus would be to “channelise and then capitalise” on the positivity generated by Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in the interest of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
“It will help to end the constitutional, economic, and religious terrorism in this country,” the Congress leader said.
