NC's defeated warriors get prime party posts

Syed Ali Safvi

JAMMU, Feb 20: In the run up to Legislative Council (LC) elections scheduled to be held on March 7, National Conference (NC) today nominated former legislator Ali Mohammad Dar and advocate Rattan Lal Gupta as new provincial presidents of the party for Jammu and Kashmir provinces.

Dr Mehboob Beg

Dar, who lost from Chadoora assembly segment, is NC's district president Budgam. He was elected from Chadoora in 1996 assembly elections. He was defeated twice by People's Democratic Party (PDP) candidate and former minister Javed Mustafa Mir in 2002 and 2008 assembly elections fro Chadoora.

Gupta has been a political secretary to the NC president, Farooq Abdullah. He was also NC's senior vice president.

Dar will replace former minister Mehboob Beg, and Gupta will replace former minister Ajay Sadhotra as provincial president in Jammu and Kashmir provinces, respectively.
Both Dar and Gupta are considered very close to the NC president.

Highly placed sources in the party told the Kashmir Times that Beg and Sadhotra have been shifted because they are likely to be adjusted as MLCs.

Expressing discontent, a senior party leader said that the party was favouring defeated candidates over the winning candidates.

It is pertinent to mention here that Dar, Beg, and Sadhotra were defeated in the recently held assembly elections in the state.

Beg lost to former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed from Anantnag assembly segment, while Sadhotra lost to Choudhary Sukhnandan of BJP from Marh assembly segment.
Elections to the upper house are still 15 days away; however, the aspirants have already started to flock to the residence of the party president. In a bid to keep himself away from a battery of MLC aspirants, Farooq decided to move out of state for some time. The NC president is presently holidaying in Delhi, and according to the party sources, he is likely to stay there until the end of this month.

Omar Abdullah and Farooq Abdullah

If the sources are to be believed, Farooq will be back only after the announcement of the party nominations. As has been the norm so far, NC will have to take nod from 10 Janpath before announcing the names of its candidates. Chief minister Omar Abdullah had also flown to New Delhi yesterday evening. It is believed that both the father-son duo may have met the Congress high command to discuss the seat sharing arrangement in the ensuing Legislative Council elections.

The biennial elections for the 12 seats of Legislative Council will be held on March 7.
The coalition partners - Congress and NC - have decided to contest all the 12 legislative council seats in the state.

Sources added that Congress is likely to put up its candidates on the five seats of the upper house while NC will contest all the six seats. One seat is for local bodies.
However, both NC and Congress have preferred to remain tight lipped about naming the candidates.

Polling for 11 seats is scheduled to be held on March 7 and counting of votes will also be done the same day.

Eight seats of the Legislative Council will fall vacant after the retirement of Nassurallah of Kargil and Phuntsog Namgyal of Ladakh on March 9, 2009, Ali Mohammad Sofi of Kashmir province and Ved Prakash Gupta of Jammu province on March 16, and Amrit Malhotra, Choudhary Bashir Ahmed Naz and Lal Mohammad Sabir of Jammu province on March 9.