Tassaduq Mufti, Mehbooba Mufti’s brother may contest from Anantnag

With the election process for the Srinagar and Anantnag parliamentary seats in Kashmir beginning next week, major political parties are in the process of finalising their contestants for the byelections, being held less than three years after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the opposition National Conference and the Congress will come out with the list of contesting candidates by early next week before the notification for the first phase (Srinagar) is issued on March 14 and for the second phase (Anantnag) on March 17.
Even as the PDP is tight-lipped over the candidates, insiders say that Tassaduq Mufti, younger brother of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, is the probable candidate from their home constituency of Anantnag in south Kashmir. Tassaduq, only son of former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, formally joined the PDP on his father’s first death anniversary here on January 7 this year.
Senior PDP leader and party general secretary Sartaj Madni is also among the probable candidates to contest from Anantnag.
The two Lok Sabha seats were represented by the ruling PDP members, Mehbooba Mufti (Anantnag) and Tariq Hameed Karra (Srinagar). The seats fell vacant after their resignations last year.
While Mehbooba Mufti resigned to return to the state Assembly after taking over as the Chief Minister, Tariq Hameed Karra, one of the founder members of the PDP, resigned both from the party and the Lok Sabha due to differences with the party over the handling of the last year’s unrest.
For the prestigious Srinagar seat, Nazir Ahmad Khan is being considered. He returned to the party recently.
The Congress, according to sources, is all set to field J&K Pradesh Congress Committee president GA Mir from Anantnag, while it is yet to decide on its Srinagar candidate. However, the final decision will be taken by the All India Congress Committee or the party high command.
Meanwhile, the seat-sharing arrangement is also being considered, which means that the Congress may contest from Anantnag and the National Conference from Srinagar.
Though critical of the decision to hold the bypolls amid rising incidents of militancy and protests, the National Conference is expected to discuss the issue in its core group meeting to be attended by its president, Farooq Abdullah, and working president Omar Abdullah here on Sunday.

Seat-sharing: Cong leaves it to high command
Jammu: The state Congress on Friday authorised the party high command to take a final call on seat adjustment with the NC for the byelections. However, the state unit suggested to the high command to convince the NC leadership to leave a seat for the party in the elections to the Legislative Council. Sources said at a meeting of senior Congress leaders, it was decided that the high command would be authorised to take a final call on the seat adjustment. The sources said the Congress leaders were ready to leave the Srinagar seat for the NC provided either Farooq Abdullah or Omar contest the elections from the constituency.