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| Today is a crucial day for Azad | | Rajya Sabha polls | |
Rustam
Early Times Report
jAMMU, Feb 6: The elected MLAs will exercise their right to vote in the Rajya Sabha election on Saturday and elect four members to the Rajya Sabha. These elections are crucial for all the four players - the PDP, the BJP, the NC and the Congress. The PDP and the BJP, which are contesting the election jointly, will work for the success of all their four candidates. Both parties have fielded two candidates each and the number of MLAs of these two parties is 53. Besides, while the PDP also has the support of at least one independent MLA from Zanskar (Ladakh), two Peoples Conference MLAs are also at the back and call of the BJP. So, their combined strength is 56 in the electoral college which consists of 87 MLAs. The PDP and the BJP are all set to win three seats with a huge margin. They are also leaving no stone unturned to win the fourth seat.
The NC and the Congress, which contested the last assembly election against each other, lambasted each other's leadership and held each other responsible for the ignominious defeat in the assembly elections, has fielded three candidates. The NC fielded two candidates knowing it full well that it would lose both with a huge margin. The NC needs the support of 44 MLAs each to win the seats, but the maximum number of votes its each candidate would get would be 27 -- 14 less than the required number. The NC has 15 MLAs and the Congress 12 and both the parties entered into what is being termed as an "unholy alliance" between the two some 9 days ago following the meeting between the AICC president Sonia Gandhi and NC working president and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah at New Delhi. The NC leadership said that it fielded its candidates only to see to it that the PDP and the BJP candidates didn't win the election unopposed. So, the NC fielded its candidates only for the sake of opposition.
The Congress fielded only one candidate, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, who lost the last Lok Sabha election to the BJP candidate with a huge margin. If the election outcome is very crucial for the PDP-BJP combine, it is all the more crucial for Azad. The outcome of the electoral exercise will determine the political future of Azad. In case he wins the election, he will remain the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, an important position invested the status of Cabinet Minister. He will be the only leader from the state in the Rajya Sabha representing the interests of both the Congress and the NC. Omar Abdullah on February 5 declared that the victory of Azad was a must for the promotion of the "secular" ethos. In case Azad loses the election, he would lose everything. He would be reduced to the status of a marginal political activist like Bhim Singh of the Panthers Party. There would be none from the NC and the Congress in the Rajya Sabha. Besides, his defeat would render Azad very weak in the state politics.
There are many senior Congress leaders in the state who do not see eye to eye with Azad. They are close to the JKPCC chief Saif-ud-Din Soz. They would exploit the defeat of Azad to convince the Congress high commend that it committed a mistake first by fielding him for the Lok Sabha election and later on by making him in-charge of the election campaign in the assembly elections. In other words, his defeat would further strengthen the hold of Soz over the organization. That's the reason Azad showered praises on the NC leadership and made all efforts to woo three non-NC and non-Congress three MLAs - Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, Hakim Yasin and Er Rashid. He needs the support of a minimum of 30 MLAs to make it to the Rajya Sabha and it will become clear after 5 p.m. on Saturday, which is a crucial day for the political future of Azad. Indeed, the contest is very tough and anything can happen, as the BJP candidate also needs the support of an equal number of MLAs. |
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