Sajad Lone says PC to abstain from voting in RS polls, terms Omar Govt ‘most failed administration’
KINS Correspondent
Srinagar, Oct 14 (KINS): Peoples Conference (PC) President Sajad Gani Lone on Tuesday said that his party will abstain from voting in the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir, asserting that they would “never vote for the National Conference (NC) candidate.”
Sajad, who is the lone member of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, said the Omar Abdullah-led government has been “the most failed administration in the history of J&K.”
“I will never vote for NC. I would have voted for Congress or any other secular party if they had fielded a candidate. We are not slaves of NC. How would I face my workers if I voted for them? So, we have decided to abstain from voting,” Lone told reporters at a press conference here, according to news agency Kashmir Indepth News Service (KINS).
He questioned why the NC did not offer a safe Rajya Sabha seat to its alliance partner, Congress. “On one hand, NC claims to be in alliance with Congress, and on the other, they are hand in glove with BJP. At the behest of the BJP, they denied a seat to Congress. Omar is following the Naveen Patnaik model in J&K,” he alleged.
Lone further claimed that a senior official from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) recently held a three-hour meeting with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, after which, “on BJP’s instructions,” the NC denied the Rajya Sabha seat to Congress.
He added that the Peoples Conference would announce its decision on whom to support in the upcoming Budgam bypolls by Wednesday evening.
The Rajya Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir are scheduled for October 24. (KINS)
