When foes turned friends
By IANSTuesday, April 7, 2009
NEW DELHI - They fought the 2004 Lok Sabha elections against each other. But now they are campaigning together for the 2009 polls.
Surjit Singh Salathia of the National Conference and Madan Lal Sharma of the Congress slugged it out in the last polls for the Jammu-Poonch parliamentary constituency. Sharma emerged victorious.
But in a political twist following the November-December assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the National Conference and the Congress entered into a partnership to rule the state and also decided to fight the Lok Sabha polls jointly.
Salathia, who won the assembly election from Vijaypur and is now a minister in the National Conference-led government, is campaigning for Sharma. He urges his party men and constituents in the Jammu constituency to vote for the Congress nominee.
‘This time, don’t look around for plough (National Conference symbol). Vote for hand (Congress symbol),’ he tells his supporters. ‘Sharma is our candidate and his victory is mine.’
Sharma reciprocates, ‘We are brothers’, as he lifts Salathia’s hand in a display of unity between the two rivals and their parties.
