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Cracks in Congress wide and open 6/22/2016 12:32:52 AM Early Times Report Srinagar, June 21: The by-polls in south Kashmir's Anantnag constituency set to be held on Wednesday have once again exposed the cracks within the Congress party in Jammu and Kashmir. Sources told Early Times a few Congress leaders were not in favour of fielding a candidate from the constituency and wanted the party to support the National Conference candidate to give a tough fight to the PDP candidate Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. They said both NC and Congress fielding different candidates has given an edge to the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and she is all set to emerge as winner as the votes of Congess and NC would be divided easily. A Congress insider revealed that top leaders of the Congress party, including Ghulam Nabi Azad did not take part in the election campaign as a mark of protest against party decision to provide a golden opportunity to Mehbooba Mufti to win the Anantnag assembly seat. Mehbooba has only held a few meetings as part of her campaign to retain the seat for her party. However, Congress has held several election rallies for their candidate Hilal Ahmed Shah. Most of these rallies were addressed by the Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee Chief Ghulam Ahmed Mir and second rung national Congress leaders like Raj Babbar and cricketer turned politician Mohammad Azharuddin. Sources revealed that senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad doesn't enjoy a cordial relation with the JKPCC Chief and he preferred to stay away. "Even the leaders of the Azad camp did not take part in the election campaign of Hilal Shah as they did not want to go against their leader," they added. Besides Azad, the former JKPCC Chief and former union minister Professor Saifuddin Soz also did not take part in the Congress rallies. There is a direct contest between Mehbooba Mufti and Congress candidate Hilal Ahmad Shah who polled around 10,000 votes against her later father's 16,000 in his maiden election on Congress ticket in the 2014 assembly elections. Shah had contested the polls independently in 2008. Sources said that a few Congress leaders had suggested to party high command to hold negotiations with National Conference to field a joint candidate from Anantnag. The High command, sources said, did not pay any heed towards the suggestion put forth by the Congress leaders mostly from Azad's camp.   Share This News with Your Friends on Social Network     Comment on this Story

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