Four candidates from former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad’s party have withdrawn nominations for the upcoming Assembly polls to prevent a “vote split” and “help secular parties”, in an apparent setback for the BJP.

Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) was widely dubbed as the BJP’s B-team and it faced allegations that it had joined the contest to split the “secular vote” and help the saffron party. He had dumped the Congress following serious differences with the top brass of the party.

“A wrong narrative was created that we are the BJP’s B-group. I am personally with the secular forces and cannot tolerate that somebody will level such allegations against us, more so saying we are close to the BJP,” said Mohammad Aslam Goni, former advocate-general who became a DPAP leader.

Goni was contesting from Bharderwah in Doda, the home turf of Azad.

The party’s chief spokesman Salman Nizami said he had directed the candidates to withdraw their nominations if they were not in a winning position.

“Out of the 13 candidates already announced, four have withdrawn. We did it to prevent a split of the vote. We were facing allegations that we were vote cutters and were helping the BJP. That is far from the truth,” Nizami told The Telegraph.

Party sources said Azad was also unlikely to campaign. He was recently admitted to
a hospital following a chest pain complaint.

In a statement to a local news agency, Azad had said “unforeseen circumstances have forced me to step back from the campaign trail”.

“The candidates should assess whether they can continue without my presence. If they feel my absence would impact their chances, they have the freedom to withdraw their candidacy,” he had said.

Party sources, however, said health issues were an alibi as he did not want to be cast as a villain in case of loss of candidates from the Congress-National Conference alliance.

Azad had a strong base in Jammu’s Muslim-majority Chenab valley but the split of the Muslim vote had helped the BJP win a majority of seats in the 2014 elections.

The worry for the NC-Congress alliance is that it has failed to reach a consensus on five seats, three of which fall in the Chenab valley. The two parties will have a “friendly contest” at these places.

Sajjad Shaheen, the NC candidate for Banihal, which is one of the five seats, said
his party was already in a commanding position in the constituency.

“Overall, their decision to withdraw from the contest is likely to benefit the NC-Congress alliance. This looks like a good gesture,” he told this newspaper.

Other DPAP candidates who have withdrawn their nominations include Fatima Begum from Inderwal, Girdhari Lal Bhau from Ramban and Asif Khanday from Banihal.

The rest of the DPAP candidates have decided to stay in the contest.

Nizami said the party had decided to contest some 25 seats across Jammu and Kashmir out of the 90 seats.