Former J&K chief minister and National Conference president Dr Farooq Abdullah said here on Thursday that a pre-poll alliance between the Congress and NC had been finalized and the paperwork was being finalized.
"Alliance on all 90 Assembly seats between the two parties has been formed. Paperwork to be finalised by tonight. Congress, NC and CPI(M) are together. We will work together and fight the elections. We are hopeful that statehood will be returned. No doors are closed for anyone," said Dr Abdullah.
He told reporters that an alliance has been made and the parties would issue mandates to their candidates in a phased manner.
Earlier, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge called on Dr Farooq Abdullah at his high-security Gupkar Road residence here.
Former chief minister and NC vice president Omar Abdullah was also present during the meeting at his father's residence.
Immediately after the meeting, Rahul Gandhi, along with Mallikarjun Kharge and K.C. Venugopal, met the Congress leaders and workers at a local hotel in Srinagar.
While addressing Congress workers, Rahul Gandhi said, "You are not workers, you are family. As soon as we came to know that elections were going to be held, we first decided to come here to Jammu and Kashmir because we wanted to give a message to the people that for us the representation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and their statehood is the most important thing."
"In the history of India, after Independence, many union territories have been converted into states, but there is only one example when statehood was taken away and a union territory was created. This has never happened before and we want to give this message that the representation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir is important, it is important for us and it is important for the country," Gandhi said.
"We want to take the entire opposition along," Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge told the workers. He said that Congress is committed to ensuring the return of Statehood.
"He said that in J&K, BJP couldn't ensure elections." BJP announced polls under pressure in the wake of Supreme Court directions. I want to put it on record that the BJP can't suppress the peoples' voices anymore in J&K. Congress committed to work for the welfare of the people of J&K. Unemployment has been at an unprecedented level in the UT. Tall claims of BJP that post Article 370, terrorism has been wiped out in J&K, have fallen flat. Infiltration has gone up and terrorism incidents have also witnessed a spike," he said.
He later left for the Jammu division where he is scheduled to address workers and interact with party workers and leaders regarding the upcoming Assembly elections.
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