Rajya Sabha polls: Congress refuses 'unsafe' seat; puts ball in ally NC's court

NEW DELHI: The Congress will not contest the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections to four seats in Jammu and Kashmir from the “unsafe” fourth seat, the party’s Jammu and Kashmir unit announced on Sunday.

J&K Congress president Tariq Hamid Karra said the party’s central leadership had sought one of the two Rajya Sabha seats that will go to polls separately. However, ally National Conference (NC) offered Congress one of the other two seats, for which polls will be held under a common notification.

“All the participants were of the opinion that seat four is not safe (un)like seat one or two. It was unanimously decided that we will not put up our candidate for seat number four. We will leave it to our alliance partners to see what they think about that,” Karra told reporters after a party meeting in Srinagar, according to PTI.

“Since the safe seat was not offered to us, we don’t want to contest on seat four,” he added.

Karra further said the Congress would open its “channels” with the NC to resolve the impasse. “The inputs from our members will be sent to our central leadership for guidance,” the J&K Congress chief stated.

The NC has already named its three candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls, indicating it will use its strength in the assembly to ensure all three emerge victorious. While all three NC nominees are assured of victory even without the support of allies, the fourth candidate of the ruling alliance would need every anti-BJP vote to ensure a clean sweep.

The three MLAs of the PDP and one each from the People’s Conference, Awami Ittehad Party, and AAP would have to vote for the ruling alliance’s candidate to secure the fourth seat.

Last year, the Congress decided not to be part of the Jammu and Kashmir government despite the NC-Congress alliance winning the September 2024 assembly polls — the region’s first since it became a Union territory in 2019.

The upcoming Rajya Sabha polls will be held on October 24.