The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) core group, headed by former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, will meet today to discuss and finalise the names of its candidates for upcoming Lok Sabha polls in Jammu and Kashmir.
Sources said Mehbooba Mufti met senior party leaders inJammu as well as Kashmir before finalising the names of the candidates. “Thecore group meeting is likely to take place tomorrow (Friday),” PDP ChiefSpokesperson Rafi Ahmad Mir told KNS.
Sources said that while the party has announced formeremployees’ union leader Abdul Qayoom Wani its candidate for the Baramulla LokSabha seat, the candidates for the remaining seats will be finalised in themeeting.
Sources said Mehbooba on Monday interacted with leaders ofall 37 Assembly seats in Jammu province to seek their opinion on thecandidature for the two Jammu seats.
According to a partyleader, though three leaders including A R Veeri and Mehboob Beg are amongprobables for the Anantnag seat, but party leaders want Mehbooba Mufti tocontest the election from southern Kashmir.
The restive southernKashmir seat was last held by Mehbooba before she returned to state in 2016 andlater went on to become the Chief Minister. However, the Election Commission ofIndia couldn’t hold the by-polls to the seat owing to “unfavorable securityscenario” in the constituency which is spread over four districts.
In 2014 parliamentary polls, Mehbooba bagged the seat butafter facing a tough fight from the Congress candidate Hilal Ahmed Shah, wholost with a very thin margin. Shah may get mandate for Assembly polls fromAnantnag seat. In South Kashmir, considered as the bastion of PDP as most of theformer legislators of the party belonged to south Kashmir districts out of itstotal strengthen of legislators that was 28.
However, party recently suffered a dent as majority of itsprominent faces quit. Those who left include Imran Raza Ansari, Abid Ansari,Javaid Mustafa Mir, Syed Basharat Bukhari, Peer Hussain and last but not theleast, Haseeb Drabu.
A senior PDP leader confirmed that the party would pitch for Mehbooba to be its candidate for south Kashmir seat. “We are sure about her win,” he said, wishing not to be named. Mehbooba has already started her public out-reach to garner peoples’ support once again.