Will Congress, NC join hands for J-K assembly polls as Rahul Gandhi, other leaders visit Jammu and Kashmir?

Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and other leaders, are in Jammu and Kashmir on a two-day visit to assess the party’s preparations for the upcoming assembly polls in the Union Territory and explore a likely alliance with the National Conference (NC).

The three-phase assembly polls in the UT are scheduled to begin with the first round on September 18. The other two rounds are scheduled for September 25 and October 1. The votes will be counted on October 4.

There is no official communication about scheduled meetings among the two parties’ leaders regarding a pre-poll alliance for the Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls, but the leaders have indicated a possibility.

Hung Assemblies since 2002

In all elections since 2002, Jammu and Kashmir has thrown up a hung verdict with no party winning an absolute majority.

NC president and former chief minister Farooq Abdullah recently said that there would be no pre-poll alliance with any political party. A few days later his son Omar Abdullah said, at the manifesto release event in Srinagar on August 19, that the party was willing to begin negotiations with the Congress party over an alliance.

Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee president Tariq Hameed Karra told party workers in Jammu on Tuesday that the grand old party was willing to join hands with any party or individual who is against the BJP and its policies.

“Congress is ready to join hand with all like-minded parties, whether they belong to Jammu or Kashmir. The only criteria is they should be like-minded,” he told journalists later.

Past Alliances

First assembly elections were held in Jammu and Kashmir in 1951. The National Conference (NC) and the Congress were the dominant parties in the erstwhile state until 2002.

The Congress and the NC are part of the opposition India bloc at the national level. The two parties contested Lok Sabha elections 2024 together. The NC fielded three candidates in the Valley’s seats and the Congress fielded two candidates in Jammu as part of pre-poll agreement. NC won two Valley seats but Congress failed to win any seat in 2024 general elections.

The NC won the 2008 Assembly elections, winning 28 seats. It formed a coalition government with the Congress, which had won 17 seats, in the then 87-member House that included Ladakh too. In 2019, Ladakh became a separate UT. The numbers of seats in Jammu and Kashmir were raised to 90 after delimitation in 2022. 

PDP-BJP alliance of 2014

The PDP-BJP government formed in Jammu and Kashmir in 2014 could not last the full 6-year term as BJP withdrew its support to former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2018. Since then, the erstwhile state has been under central rule.

On Thursday, Gandhi is expected to address a worker’s meeting in Srinagar, issue a press statement, and then fly to Jammu for election-related meetings.

Rahul and Kharge will take feedback from party workers about the grassroots-level preparations for the elections being held in the UT after a gap of ten years.