By IANS,
Jammu : The Congress in Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday put its ruling alliance partner, the National Conference (NC), in a spot by asking it to cancel the memberships of the seven legislators who were expelled by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) for having cross-voted during last year’s legislative council elections.
“The government must cancel the membership of the seven MLAs who were expelled by the BJP. This is a moral and legal necessity,” said state Congress president Saifuddin Soz here on Sunday, sending a note of caution to the National Conference that is reluctant to oblige the Congress on this count.
Soz, who was addressing a huge public meeting said that “fresh elections should be held for the seven Assembly seats”, making it clear that nothing short of that was acceptable to the Congress in the state.
Although both, the National Conference and Congress coalition has been in power in Jammu and Kashmir since 2009, there are serious differences between the two parties. The NC is apprehensive that Congress may win seven seats in the bye-elections if the erstwhile BJP legislators were disqualified as members of the state legislative assembly.
In that eventuality, the Congress tally in the House of 87 will go up from 17 to 24 and that may disturb the political equilibrium in the state.
The BJP had first expelled its legislature party leader Chaman Lal Gupta and then six others whom the party had found guilty of cross-voting and helping the ruling coalition candidates to win in the legislative council elections. The BJP had 11 MLAs, but its candidate for the council had got only four votes. The other seven went in favour of the coalition candidates.
The Congress had raised this issue during the autumn session of the state assembly on the day when a resolution seeking amnesty for Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru , moved by an independent member Abdul Rashid, better known as “Engineer Rashid”, was to come up in the House for discussion.
Speaker of the assembly, Mohammad Akbar Lone had adjourned the House and the resolution got dropped.
Soz said that there could be no compromise on the issue.
The PCC president has increased tensions with the National Conference by seeking expulsion of the erstwhile BJP members from the Assembly. The relations between the two parties are already strained on the issue of the amount of powers to be conferred on the newly elected panchayats across the state.