Srinagar, Nov 11: The Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Sunday decided to contests all four Legislative Council seats reserved for Panchayats in the state.
 Though the meeting of the top leadership of the party did not decide on the candidature, it authorized PDP patron Mufti Muhammad Sayeed and its president Mehbooba Mufti to take the final call on it, the party sources said.
 For the second consecutive day the PDP Patron called the meeting of the party’s top leadership at his Gupkar residence here to discuss the polls and devise a strategy for contesting these.
 All the PDP legislators, including Mehbooba Mufti, Muzaffar Hussain Baig, Moulvi Ifthikar Ansari, Muhammad Dilawar Mir and A R Veeri attended the meeting which lasted for almost three hours. “It was decided that the party would contests all the four seats,” a senior PDP member said.
 Two seats each are reserved for Kashmir and Jammu regions. A source said there was unanimity among the party leadership that a “general list” of probable candidates should be compiled first.
 He said once the list is finalized it would be later debated in the party’s political affairs committee which would meet later this week. A final decision on the candidates would be taken after the upcoming meeting, the source said.
 He said the meeting also delved upon the strategy to be adopted for contesting the polls.
 This is for the first time in more than 30 years that four seats of the upper house reserved for the Panchayats would be filled up.
 At least 35000 Panchs and Sarpanchs would form the Electoral College for the polls to the four seats.
 Each Panchayat member would cast two votes in his/her respective division and two candidates each in Kashmir and Jammu who would secure highest number of the votes would be declared winners.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 11 Nov 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 11 Nov 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 12 Nov 2012 00:00:00 IST