The Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party announced on Saturday that it will not enter into any pre-election alliances and will contest all 60 of the Union Territory’s Assembly seats.
Party leader Altaf Bukhari claimed that the Apni Party will neither seek support from nor offer support to any other party.
“We do not have an alliance with any party. We will neither support any party, nor take support from any other party. We are not a part of any camp,” he said, launching his campaign from the Chanapora Assembly seat, where he will stand as a candidate, PTI reported.
Bukhari confirmed that the Apni Party intends to field candidates for 60 out of the total 90 seats, with 40 candidates from Kashmir and 20 from Jammu.
Regarding the NC-Congress alliance, he suggested it comprises a coalition of the NC, Congress, PDP, CPI(M), and BJP, with some parties collaborating openly and others doing so behind the scenes. “Some are openly doing it, while others (from) behind the curtains,” he added.
On Thursday, the Congress and National Conference (NC) announced an alliance for all 90 Assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir for the upcoming elections. The announcement came from NC president Farooq Abdullah after a meeting with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge at Abdullah’s residence in Srinagar.
The Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections will be held in three phases: September 18 and 25, and October 1, with results to be announced on October 4.
In the 2014 Assembly elections, the last state polls in J&K, the PDP won the most seats, with 28, followed by the BJP with 25. The BJP’s vote share of 22.98 percent was slightly higher than the PDP’s 22.67 percent. The PDP and BJP formed a government together after the elections, but it collapsed in 2018.