Last Updated on November 15, 2020 at 2:12 pm
The members of People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) have failed to finalise their seat-sharing formula for the upcoming District Development Council (DDC) elections. Contributing parties to the alliance held a meeting on November 14 on the issue of seat sharing arrangements but couldn’t come to a solution which could be accepted by all. This was a third meeting in two days on the issue.
Mehbooba Mufti, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Chief and Vice-Chairperson of PAGD, said that the alliance has a higher purpose of safeguarding identity of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and should avoid quarreling over seats for DDC elections. Sajad Lone, Chairman of JKPC, stated that statesmanship and magnanimity is a missing characteristic of our politics.
It was reported earlier that earlier in the day, Muzaffar Hussain, one of the founding members of the PDP, resigned from the party as a consequence of seat-sharing disputes in the party.
A PAGD leader said that the meeting ran for several hours at the headquarters of National Conference ‘Nawa-i-Subah’ in Srinagar and ended on the late of November 14. According to him, the meeting was organized in order to have a discussion between the parties for the upcoming DDC elections. The alliance is facing a problem of seat-sharing formula accepted by all the members as three meetings held for the last two days have not yielded any result.
The leader said that they concluded the meeting at 10 PM but no decision has been finalized. The alliance members have scheduled to meet on November 15 to discuss further about the elections.
Mehbooba Mufti tweeted that the alliance was formed solely with a purpose of defending the identity of the people of J&K and not for any petty electoral gain or deepening party interests. We have a bigger cause to fight. Echoing the views of Ms Mufti, Sajad Lone said that the absence of statesmanship is being felt more than any other time in our polity.
Earlier, the alliance has announced that the National Conference will contest on 21 out of the total 27 seats. The PDP will get four seats and Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference remaining two seats.
