Vikar Rasool Wani: Former Congress Chief Vying For A Third Term In Banihal (image: x.com/vikar_rasool)

In the upcoming Assembly elections, former Congress chief Vikar Rasool Wani is seeking his third term from Banhihal assembly constituency. He will be contesting against BJP candidate Rahul Pratap Raj.

While addressing a public meeting in Banihal to begin his election campaign, Wani talked that there is conspiracy in his removal from the post as State Congress President. He stated that few forces conspired to stop him from becoming the Chief Minister. “Few people from across the tunnel consider us either Paharis or Gujjars and don’t treat us equally,” Kashmir Life reports, as he is saying.

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Extending gratitude over his nomination, he further said: “now you people have to make me win with a huge margin of 50 thousand votes so that Congress leadership will know who the real leader is.”

However, in the pre-election meeting of the J&K Congress leaders held in the end of June expressed displeasure over Rasool Wani’s leadership style as state president. Sources told The Sunday Guardian that the top leaders including Mallikarjun Kharge, KC Venugopal and Rahul Gandhi, indirectly indicated that they are not happy with the functioning of Wani who is running the party as per his notions and also pointed out his maladministration.

On August this year, Congress removed Wani from his post, and appointed Tariq Hameed Karra party’s J&K chief. The party appointed Wani as the State PCC president in August 2022.

In the 2008 assembly polls, Vikar Rasool defeated Independent candidate Showkat Javed by a margin of 3033 votes. In the 2014 polls, he retained the position by defeating the PDP candidate Bashir Ahmed Runyal by 4349 votes – a slight rise in the number of votes in comparison to the previous time.

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Banihal assembly segment is part of Udhampur Lok Sabha constituency. Banihal is one among the five constituencies where National Conference and Congress, who are in alliance, will witness a friendly contest.