SRINAGAR: The National Conference (NC) will participate in the elections to the state assembly next month, party president Faroog Abdullah announced here on August 11. The NC would have no alliance with any other party, but seat adjustments would be discussed, he said. Briefing reporters after a two day meeting of the party’s working committee, Mr. Abdullah said the situation in the Kashmir valley and parts of the Jammu region were “far from conducive for holding of elections. Yet, he said, the party had decided to participate in the forthcoming polls “in the larger interest of the people” whose sufferings could be alleviated “by an elected government alone.”
Mr. Abdullah said the party’s working committee had, while hailing Prime Minister Deve Gowda’s assurance on restoration of autonomy as a step in the right direction, expressed its apprehensions in view of the Center’s backtracking on such commitments in the past. But, he said, the working Committees had reiterated its pledge to the people to carry on its struggle for achieving the goal of autonomy. He expressed confidence that his party would win the elections with a thumping majority. “If we do not get a two thirds majority, we’ll try to convince other members of the assembly that restoration of autonomy is good for the State,” he added.
The News working committee, which had dismissed the recent parliamentary elections in Kashmir as “neither free nor fair” has, in its resolution, urged the ‘Election Commission and the state administration to take all necessary measures to make the forthcoming elections as “genuine and credible democratic exercise.”, Asked if free and fair election; meant that those opposed to elections should be free to launch an antielectron Campaign, Mr. Abdullah said: “Every Indian citizen should be free to campaign for or against elections.” He said he would counter the separatists’ opposition to elections by pointing out to the people the “dual> ism” in their (Separatists’) stand demonstrated by their tacit approval to the elections in Pakistan held Kashmir.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 14, 1996
