Congress- NC split: Who broke the alliance?

The Congress party's announcement of fielding its own candidates in all 87 seats for the upcoming Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir (J-K) has drawn a strong rebuttal from J-K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah who said it was the National Conference (NC) which decided to sever the alliance.

Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad announced today that his party would fight the upcoming J-K Assembly elections without the NC's support to gain the people's mandate and will try to secure 44 plus seats in the polls.

The former J-K chief minister said, "It is better not to depend on other party like we did in 2002 and 2008, it's better to go on our own. We are different from the both the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and NC. If we go with PDP or NC we have to accommodate their agenda too, then it gets difficult."

Omar Abdullah, however, tweeted today that he had conveyed his party's decision to sever the Congress-NC alliance to the Congress leadership ten days ago.

Omar wrote, "I met the Mrs Gandhi 10 days ago and thanked her for all her support. I conveyed NC's decision to fight the elections alone. I explained the reasons but also told her I wouldn't be making a public announcement because I didn't want it to look opportunistic."

"For it to be spun now as a Cong decision is wrong and a complete distortion of the facts, not surprising but incorrect none the less," he added.

The Congress-NC alliance had been on shaky grounds ever since the Lok Sabha poll results were announced where BJP swept to power in the country and won three seats from J-K, while the PDP bagged the other three seats.