Congress is preparing to stake a claim for one of the four Rajya Sabha seats up for election in Jammu and Kashmir on October 24, with senior leader Digvijay Singh tasked to negotiate with coalition partner National Conference (NC), party sources said on Thursday.
Party leaders in New Delhi said that Singh, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, will formally raise the demand with the NC leadership. “He is expected to hold discussions with NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah or Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in the coming days,” a senior Congress functionary said.
Singh, entrusted by the Congress high command in April to oversee alliance matters in Jammu and Kashmir, has been coordinating with Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Tariq Hamid Karra and the party’s Jammu and Kashmir in-charge.
In the upcoming polls, the NC-Congress alliance is set to secure three of the four Rajya Sabha seats, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strongly placed to take the fourth. The ruling alliance currently commands 53 legislators in the House, compared to the BJP’s 28.
The non-BJP opposition bloc, which includes three members from Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), one each from Peoples Conference (PC) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), along with two independents, holds a total of seven seats.
