Jammu: The ruling National Conference (NC) of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah won three of the four Rajya Sabha seats for which elections were held on October 24 in Srinagar. The fourth seat was won by Sat Sharma of the BJP who is the party’s working president at present with 32 votes. The 3-1 results in favour of the NC and the BJP were along expected lines as there was a very sharp contest for the fourth seat. Besides the vote of all 28 BJP legislators, it is not clear as to who all voted in favour of Sharma.
The newly minted Rajya Sabha members from J&K are Sajjad Kichloo from Kishtwar, Choudhary Mohammad Ramzan from Kupwara and Shammi Oberoi, a Sikh from Srinagar, besides Sat Sharma. Incidentally, the last Sikh Rajya Sabha member from J&K was Trilok Singh Bajwa who had won on support from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) during its first tenure at the helm from November 2002 onwards. The fourth NC candidate, Inam Nabi Dar, narrowly lost to BJP’s Sat Sharma got only 22 votes as against 32 bagged by Sat Sharma.
After about four years, there will now be representatives in the Rajya Sabha from J&K.
Out of a total of 88 legislators, 86 MLAs voted as Sajjad Lone of the People’s Conference (PC) abstained from voting just as he had announced some days ago. Another MLA also abstained from voting for the four seats even as lone Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator Mehraj Malik, presently in custody under Public Safety Act (PSA) exercised his right to vote through postal ballot/s.
The first three NC candidates, Ramzan Choudhary, Sajjad Kichloo and Shammi Oberoi, sailed through easily. There were three rounds of voting for these four seats as seat no 1 and seat no 2 virtually went unchallenged as the NC had an overwhelming majority. Its candidates against these seats, Kichloo and Choudhary Ramzan, won easily and were handed over victory certificates by the assembly secretariat.
The third seat, against which the NC had asked Shammi Oberoi to contest, went into party’s kitty easily as he sailed through.
On Thursday evening, the Congress, which was sending mixed signals regarding casting the votes of its six MLAs, was solidly behind the ruling National Conference. By this time, the NC’s arch rival in the Jammu & Kashmir politics, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), had also decided to pledge the votes of its three MLAs for the NC. PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti said the NC did not “deserve’’ her party’s support but it was to keep out fascist BJP that she had instructed her MLAs to vote for Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s party.
The same “fascist’’ BJP because of whose support her father became CM of J&K on March 1, 2016, and she in April 2016 after her father’s death. Mehbooba has been calling the BJP fascist and used other epithets too for the party which ended her dream run as Chief Minister in June 2018 after withdrawing support to her government. Some months later, she made an effort with the NC, Congress and others to form an alternative government without BJP’s support. Those plans fell through as late Satya Pal Malik, who was Governor of J&K state at that time, dissolving the legislative assembly. The rest, as they say, is history, too well known to be repeated now in the context of RS elections.
Mehbooba said that NC aspirant Shammi Oberoi had called her up seeking support as had Dr Farooq Abdullah. However, she said that she had told Dr Abdullah to support two Bills in the Legislative Assembly in return for the support during Rajya Sabha elections. The PDP chief said the NC could also bring these bills into the Legislative Assembly if it doesn’t want to back her party on the issue.
On paper, the NC has 41 MLAs (with one seat of Budgam vacated by CM Omar Abdullah), Independents seven (07), the Congress six (06), the PDP three (03), CPM one (01) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) one (01). This comes out to a total of 59 legislators and the NC is claiming the support of these 59 legislators. But the catch is the three PDP legislators abstaining from voting on the fourth seat of the Rajya Sabha. Thus reduction of the support for the NC to 56, or even lesser. If even one Independent abstains from voting on the fourth seat handing over victory to the BJP.
The BJP has 28 MLAs (with its Nagrota seat lying vacant due to death of D S Rana) but it claimed that it will win one seat. Out of 88 MLAs of the House, barring two, 86 voted in these elections.
The abstention of a couple of legislators affected the final result as Sajjad Lone of People’s Conference (PC) had declared that he will not cast his vote. The Awami Ittehad Partry (AIP) of Engineer Rashid has one MLA in the assembly but it was not clear as to who he voted for. Or did he vote at all.
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