Srinagar, April 14: Cross voting by at least seven BJP legislators in favour of National Conference-Congress candidates on Wednesday helped the ruling alliance partners score an easy victory in the Legislative Council polls in Jammu and Kashmir.
In the final tally, NC-Cong alliance won five out of six seats while main Opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), secured one seat from Kashmir.
Immediately after the results were announced in the lobby of the State Assembly, jubilant supporters of National Conference candidates from Kashmir raised slogans ‘Allha-o-Akbar, Naar-e-Taqbeer’ hailing the victory of the coalition candidates and dedicated it to the friendship of Rahul and Omar — two young scions of Gandhi and Abdullah dynasties.
However, the State unit of the BJP with 11 MLAs in its kitty immediately came under the scanner as its own candidate from Jammu Thakur Ranjit Singh polled only 4 votes.
The voting pattern on all the six council seats clearly indicated that seven out of 11 BJP MLA’s cross-voted in favour of the alliance candidates against the whip of the party.
In a House of 89 members, the NC-Cong alliance had 53 votes in its kitty, PDP had 21, BJP 11 and Panthers Party 3.
The minimum quota of 23 votes was fixed for the three seats of Kashmir, 30 for two seats of Jammu and 45 for one reserved seat of Poonch.
Returning officer and secretary of the State Assembly Mohd Ramzan said, “The polling concluded successfully and in the final tally National Conference won 3 seats, Indian National Congress 2 and PDP one. He said Bashir Ahmad Shah and Dharambir Singh of the NC secured 26 votes each, while Mohammad Ashraf Mir of PDP got 25, out of the total 87 votes cast for three seats of Kashmir.
Yashpaul Khajuria of Congress and Noor Hussain of NC secured 30 votes each out of the 88 votes cast for twin seats of Jammu.
Jahangir Mir of Congress secured 52 votes out of 88 polled votes for Poonch reserved seat, Ramzan said.
Engineer Abdul Rasheed abstained from the voting, while Ashwani Kumar Sharma, an independent legislator did not cast his vote for Kashmir province seats.
Taking serious note of the betrayal by his own party MLA’s BJP chief whip Ashok Khajuria told The Pioneer, the party MLA’s have voted against the party’s whip and supported the alliance candidates score easy victories.
Political observers in Jammu also expressed surprise over the blatant support of BJP legislators to alliance candidates.
On the other hand Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah said that the victory of all coalition candidates in Legislative Council elections vindicates the cohesion and unity between National Conference and Congress. The coalition was fearing trouble from within their own camp due to two warring factions of the congress.
“Both the parties are on same page and complement each other in translating the pledge of Khushaal Jammu and Kashmir in reality”, he said.
——–Agencies