SRINAGAR, Aug 21: Ahead of Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi arrived in Srinagar on Wednesday on a two-day visit.
The top Congress leadership is likely to give a final shape to the pre-poll alliance with the National Conference.
Party leaders said Gandhi would hold talks with the party leadership and get feedback from the workers here on Thursday.
There is a possibility that top leadership of NC Farooq Abdullah or his son Omar Abdullah may also call on Gandhi in Srinagar and discuss the alliance.
Senior Congress leader Ghulam Ahmed Mir said that top Congress leadership will hold meetings here tomorrow.
“The visit of Rahulji and Khargeji was planned a month back. All meetings with party leadership are scheduled on Thursday,” Mir said.
The newly appointed president of J&K Congress Tariq Karra recently said that Congress is open to an alliance with like-minded parties in the upcoming assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir.
He had said that NC and the People's Democratic Party (PDP) were communicating with Congress central leadership about a possible pre-poll alliance.
NC and Congress are constituents of the Opposition INDIA bloc and they fought the Lok Sabha polls in Jammu and Kashmir in alliance. While Congress contested two Lok Sabha seats in Jammu division and lost both of them, the NC fielded candidates for the three seats in Kashmir and won two.
The Congress and NC are already in talks at the local level to stitch alliance and discuss seat sharing for the upcoming assembly polls.
The top Congress leaders would travel to Jammu on Thursday evening and interact with party workers and leadership and finalize poll strategy.
