The National Conference’s (NC) two-day marathon meeting in Srinagar, the first since the party’s notable performance in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election, deliberated upon the party’s manifesto for the upcoming Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir; structural changes to give a fillip to the party’s public outreach; and the issue of jailed youth.
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Around 60 leaders from across J&K exchanged ideas with the top leadership of the party’s working committee, including party president Farooq Abdullah and vice president Omar Abdullah. The party has a multi-tier system, with district-level delegates, district-level leadership, and the central leadership.
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The meeting came in the backdrop of the party’s performance in the Lok Sabha election, where it won two out of three Lok Sabha seats in the Kashmir Valley. The party was leading from 34 out of the 54 Assembly segments in the three Lok Sabha constituencies, according to its data. J&K has 90 Assembly segments, with 36 of them in the Jammu and Udhampur Lok Sabha constituencies.
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The NC’s manifesto committee, tasked with building a fresh relationship with the people, is headed by Abdul Rahim Rather, who authored the party’s ‘autonomy report’ in 1999.
NC MP Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi is collating suggestions on public issues and aspirations online in a rare initiative. These will be included in the party’s manifesto.
“While we will be taking suggestions through a number of physical interactions, I would welcome any productive and progressive suggestions through the online platforms,” Mr. Mehdi said. The manifesto for the Assembly election will be finalised within 45 days, sources in the party said.
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The party is also in the process of bringing about structural changes, and changes to its constitution, to enhance its public outreach, the first such effort in three decades. The NC bore the brunt of militancy in the 1990s, and its top leadership left J&K in the wake of raging militancy. However, the party’s re-connection with locals was evident during the recent Lok Sabha election, where the party placed ideology above the slogans of sadak (roads), bijli (electricity), pani (water) to strike a chord with its traditional cadre.
Sources in the party told The Hindu that the structural changes, likely to be rolled out soon, and will include the creation of new party posts. They were aimed at “making the party more dynamic, robust, and more accommodative”.
Senior leaders as well as the newly-elected MPs also discussed the means and ways to ensure that jailed youth, especially those arrested after August 5, 2019 were shifted to Kashmir from jails elsewhere in a first phase, “followed by campaigns for their release”, sources said.
”The meeting delved into party affairs and various other pressing matters. It spanned over two intense days of deliberations with a primary focus on upcoming Assembly elections,” Mr. Omar Abdullah posted on social media.
J&K is likely to see its first Assembly election in September this year, according to the timeline fixed by the Supreme Court, after the erstwhile State’s special status was scrapped in 2019. The last Assembly election in the erstwhile State was held in 2014.