The Peoples Democratic Party will extend complete support to the alliance between the National Conference and Congress if they adopt its agenda, party chief Mehbooba Mufti said on Saturday, PTI reported.
Mufti, however, remarked that the alliance between the National Conference and Congress was limited to seat-sharing. She said that her party’s agenda was to resolve the “Kashmir problem” within the country’s legal framework.
“Forget about alliance and seat-sharing, if the Congress and the National Conference are ready to accept our agenda – that resolution of the Kashmir issue is necessary and on opening of routes – we will tell them to contest on all the seats and we will follow you,” the Peoples Democratic Party chief said.
Mufti added that there was no possibility of a post-poll alliance between her party and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“There is nothing like that,” she said, according to PTI. “We had joined hands with the BJP government and not the party and we had put a condition that they would not touch Article 370.”
The Peoples Democratic Alliance and BJP were in an alliance from March 2015 to June 2018, when the Hindutva party pulled out of the coalition.
Mufti’s party on Saturday released its manifesto, in which it promised to restore Jammu and Kashmir to its “original status” and to push for regional cooperation between India and Pakistan.
Elections for the 90-seat Assembly in Jammu and Kashmir will take place in three phases: September 18, September 25, and October 1, with the counting of votes scheduled for October 4. These will be the first elections in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370, which gave special status to the erstwhile state.
The Congress and National Conference announced a pre-poll alliance for the elections on Thursday. On Friday, National Conference Vice-President Omar Abdullah said that the two parties had finalised seat-sharing arrangements for most seats. Negotiations are going on for the remaining constituencies, he added.