Hectic lobbying in Cong for Legislative Council elections

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 26

Although chances of the Congress to retain even a single Legislative Council seat are not so bright, over a dozen party leaders have staked their claims on a seat reserved for Jammu province. Aspirants are camping in New Delhi to mobilise support of their mentors for the seat.

Highly placed sources said half a dozen senior Congress leaders had been camping in New Delhi for the last one week to mobilise support. These leaders include some former legislators.

Out of the six members of the Legislative Council, who are retiring in April, two belong to the Congress but its chances to retain even a single seat are low.

The electoral college for the Legislative Council is 89 MLAs, including two nominated women legislators of the Lower House. As per the strength of different parties in the Assembly, the ruling coalition has 58 votes, including two members of the Peoples Conference and one Independent MLA from Zanskar Sayeed Mohammad Baqir Rizvi. The Congress has only 12 members in the Lower House.

Although no official announcement has been made regarding seat-sharing between the opposition parties, the Congress leadership is hopeful that the National Conference would leave the Jammu seat for the party to ensure victory of the opposition on at least two seats.

As per arithmetic of the Legislative Assembly, the PDP-BJP coalition is in a position to easily win two seats of the Kashmir valley and one seat reserved for Poonch district. Furthermore, the coalition has enough numbers to win one of the two seats of Jammu province but the real fight would be for the remaining one seat. For winning the seat, the Congress requires support of the NC along with at least three other legislators.

The sources said the central leadership had asked ticket aspirants to ensure support of at least three Independent legislators before staking claims for the ticket.