Rahul Gandhi, Kharge to visit J&K for key election meetings

Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge will visit Jammu and Kashmir for two days from Wednesday, 21 August.

Announcing the visit, K C Venugopal, Congress General Secretary in-charge of the Organisation in a post on X said, "On 21st and 22nd August, Hon’ble Congress President Shri Mallikarjun kharge ji and Leader of Opposition Shri Rahul Gandhi ji will be visiting Jammu and Srinagar for key meetings in preparation for the upcoming assembly elections."

Rahul Gandhi and Kharge will meet the National Conference (NC) leadership to finalise modalities for a pre-poll alliance for the Legislative Assembly polls in J&K.

The two are allies in the INDIA bloc. “He will discuss the seat-sharing formula with the NC leaders here while the pre-poll alliance is almost final,” Congress sources said.

The two leaders will also meet Pradesh Congress Committee heads to discuss the seat-sharing formula.

NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah has, however, recently said that there would be no pre-poll alliance with any political party and the party is confident of getting a majority in the 90-member J&K Assembly on its own.

Congress and the NC had a poll alliance during the Lok Sabha polls. Two seats of the Jammu division and the lone Lok Sabha seat of the Ladakh union territory were given to the Congress while three seats in Kashmir were given to the NC.

The Congress lost both seats in the Jammu division to the BJP while the Ladakh seat was won by an NC rebel defeating the BJP and the Congress candidates.

Out of the three seats in Kashmir, Srinagar and Anantnag-Rajouri were won by the NC.

Independent candidate, Engineer Rashid defeated NC Vice President and former chief minister Omar Abdullah in the Baramulla Lok Sabha election.

The National Conference on Monday, 19 August announced its manifesto which promised to return the Special Status, statehood, stressing upon India- Pakistan dialogue and release of all prisoners among others.

The BJP has slammed the NC manifesto, terming it misleading.