The newest Congress-Nationwide Convention (NC) conflict might have begun with a music, however it’s actually about one thing a lot older: who will get to set the political phrases of the alliance in Jammu and Kashmir?CM Omar Abdullah and NC president Farooq Abdullah stood via the total rendition of Vande Mataram on Wednesday on the inaugural Worldwide Movie Pageant in Srinagar. The music was performed in its full six-stanza model, lasting about three minutes and 10 seconds, in keeping with the Centre’s new protocol.This was in sharp distinction with the Congress’s stand. Its grand-old occasion has reaffirmed its 1937 determination to limit public rendition at occasion occasions to the primary two stanzas, arguing that the later verses sit uneasily with the pluralist ethos of the liberty motion.Congress basic secretary KC Venugopal subsequently mentioned the total model “sits uneasily” with the syncretic and pluralist ethos envisioned by India’s freedom fighters and urged allies to face by the Congress place.“With respect and humility, we wish our allies to honour the knowledge and judgment of our freedom fighters, and stand with us in singing solely the model of this lovely and historic music that they adopted,” Venugopal mentioned on X.The NC was fast to reply, saying the J&Ok authorities was solely fulfilling its official obligation. “After legislative enactment by Parliament, singing Vande Mataram and standing for the music has turn out to be a statutory obligation (obligatory authorized obligation) whatever the ideological place of any occasion, group or alliance,” mentioned Nationwide Convention spokesperson Tanvir Sadiq.The Vande Mataram row is the most recent within the checklist of NC-Congress variations which have surfaced post-election. Nevertheless, in J&Ok, the dispute carries a further historic cost.The NC has spent a long time establishing its political identification round a specific proposition: New Delhi is usually a companion, however it can’t be the political proprietor of Kashmir’s selections.That’s the place the ghost of 1987 enters.
One alliance, two political vocabularies
The Vande Mataram dispute has as soon as once more uncovered an asymmetry that has repeatedly surfaced between the 2 events.Congress has to steadiness its place throughout India. For Abdullahs’ NC, the principal political constituency stays rooted in J&Ok, the place questions of identification, autonomy, federalism and the connection with New Delhi carry a way more instant electoral which means.It is usually why the most recent row isn’t an remoted irritant within the alliance.In December 2025, as an illustration, Omar Abdullah explicitly distanced the NC from Congress’s “vote chori” marketing campaign, saying Congress was free to decide on its personal agenda however that it was not routinely the agenda of the INDIA bloc. With this, Omar tried to say his occasion’s political autonomy inside the alliance.And that has been the recurring sample.
The alliance and an unequal energy equation
The 2024 meeting election gave the NC-Congress relationship a brand new lease of life, however it additionally made the asymmetry between the 2 events stark.The alliance crossed the bulk mark with 49 seats, with the NC profitable 42, Congress six and CPM one. The BJP emerged with 29, PDP three and independents seven.The pre-poll negotiations themselves had not been easy: the events agreed that NC would contest 51 seats and Congress 32, whereas a number of constituencies remained “pleasant contests”.The marketing campaign additionally revealed the boundaries of joint possession. Congress and NC leaders didn’t all the time marketing campaign collectively. In Sopore, the place the 2 allies had been in a pleasant contest, Rahul Gandhi and Omar Abdullah campaigned for his or her respective candidates individually.Through the marketing campaign, Omar Abdullah had publicly famous that Rahul Gandhi ought to dedicate extra marketing campaign effort and time to the Jammu area along with Kashmir to maximise electoral affect.Omar himself gave the sensible purpose for the alliance in the course of the marketing campaign: it was supposed to forestall a hung meeting and provides voters an alternate.“We might have gone for a post-poll alliance, however the alliance has been fashioned (earlier than elections) to provide individuals an choice in order that there isn’t any hung meeting and there’s no room for doubt {that a} authorities is not going to be fashioned,” he had mentioned.The alliance received the election, and the following query was: what does both sides get to assert as its personal?The primary main post-election rupture got here even earlier than the brand new authorities had settled in.Omar Abdullah turned CM in October 2024, however Congress selected to remain out of his ministry, citing restoration of statehood as its precedence. Whereas Congress backed the NC authorities from outdoors, its absence highlighted a strategic divide inside the alliance. Omar needed to have interaction with Delhi to control the Union Territory, whereas Congress sought to strain the Centre from outdoors. That distinction in method has repeatedly resurfaced.
Statehood: Widespread demand & supply of friction
In July 2025, Congress introduced protests in Jammu, Srinagar and Delhi and Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to PM Narendra Modi searching for laws to revive J&Ok’s statehood. The NC management was irritated as a result of the announcement had not been coordinated with the ruling occasion. Some NC leaders described Congress’s marketing campaign as counterproductive and at the same time as “sabotage” of the federal government’s personal efforts.Omar’s objection was that Congress had launched the marketing campaign with out informing or consulting the NC, leaving its alliance companion caught off guard.The distinction is clearer on Article 370. The NC’s 2024 manifesto explicitly referred to as for the restoration of Articles 370 and 35A and reversal of the modifications made after August 2019. Congress has equally opposed the 2019 constitutional modifications, however in its current campaigns positioned better emphasis on the restoration of statehood.Omar reiterated within the J&Ok meeting in February that his authorities remained dedicated to restoring particular standing, at the same time as statehood remained a direct demand. By July 2026, he was additionally linking the restoration of statehood to any future dialogue on J&Ok’s earlier constitutional place.This has given the 2 events totally different political priorities.
The Rajya Sabha dispute
In October 2025, the disagreement moved from ideology to seats. J&Ok was electing 4 Rajya Sabha members. The NC, which had emerged because the dominant occasion within the meeting, initially mentioned leaving one seat for Congress.Talks failed.The NC ultimately fielded candidates for all 4 seats after Congress determined to not contest the fourth seat it had been provided, arguing that it was not among the many “secure seats” it had sought.Omar’s response was strikingly matter-of-fact: “So be it.”The NC-Congress disagreement finally value the alliance a clear sweep, with the BJP profitable the fourth seat Congress had declined to contest.
We felt that the perfect likelihood of profitable that seat was with the Congress, and so they felt in any other case. So be it.
Omar Abdullah on RS seat impasse
The ghost of 1987
To know why the NC could also be significantly delicate to questions of management, one has to return not merely to 1987 however to 1984.Farooq Abdullah’s authorities was dismissed on July 2, 1984, after 12 NC legislators defected. Ghulam Mohammad Shah, Farooq’s brother-in-law and chief of the defecting group, fashioned the federal government with Congress help. Modern accounts described the episode as a central-government intervention in Kashmir politics; Farooq referred to as the dismissal unconstitutional.For the NC, this was not an summary constitutional episode. It was a direct lesson within the vulnerability of a regional authorities to New Delhi’s political equipment.Then got here 1986.Rajiv Gandhi and Farooq Abdullah reached an settlement that introduced the 2 events collectively electorally. A Human Rights Watch report famous that the accord deepened a way of betrayal amongst many Kashmiris, who noticed Farooq Abdullah compromising with the identical Congress occasion that had pushed him out of workplace two years earlier.
1987: The alliance that turned a warning
The NC-Congress alliance received 66 of J&Ok’s 76 meeting seats in 1987. However the consequence was overshadowed by the emergence of the Muslim United Entrance as an opposition platform, arrests of its candidates and employees, and widespread allegations of electoral rigging. Human Rights Watch later described the election as a turning level that contributed to widespread disillusionment with electoral politics.The importance of 1987 for the NC, subsequently, is concerning the political reminiscence it created. A technology of Kashmiri activists got here to imagine that the democratic route had been closed to them, a notion that turned a part of the backdrop to the insurgency that adopted.The episode additionally left a permanent paradox. Congress was concurrently the NC’s electoral companion and a significant drive on the Centre. That historical past helps clarify the NC’s intuition to work with Congress whereas resisting any notion that Delhi is dictating its regional agenda.That mistrust predates the Eighties. In 1953, Sheikh Abdullah was dismissed and arrested after his relationship with the Union authorities deteriorated. The circumstances had been very totally different, however the political reminiscence was comparable: central intervention might reshape J&Ok’s politics. For the NC, in contrast to many different regional events, Congress’s centralising previous is subsequently not distant historical past however a part of its personal political inheritance.
2009-14: Historical past managed, however not erased
The 2 events confirmed they might overcome that historical past after the 2008 meeting election. The NC received 28 seats and Congress 17, and the events fashioned a coalition authorities with Omar Abdullah as CM in 2009.However the partnership remained contested. Variations over AFSPA, administrative points and governance repeatedly surfaced. In 2011, Congress referred to as for consensus on AFSPA whereas Omar maintained that the state authorities was an vital stakeholder.By 2014, the alliance had run its course and Congress selected to contest the meeting election individually. NC leaders argued that the affiliation with a centrist nationwide occasion had diluted the occasion’s pro-Valley credentials, with one senior NC chief calling Congress a “very dangerous alliance companion”.The 1987 ghost & actual take a look at of allianceWhereas 1987 should form the NC’s political instincts, it might be too simplistic to hyperlink each present-day disagreement to that historical past. The political and constitutional context has modified; nevertheless, the expertise stays a part of the backdrop to the connection.
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The lesson for the NC, as we noticed within the final election, has not been to keep away from Congress, however to work with it the place pursuits converge whereas retaining its personal political house.The Vande Mataram dispute, subsequently, is much less important in itself than what it reveals about persevering with variations over statehood, Article 370, seat-sharing and the steadiness between Congress’s nationwide technique and the NC’s regional politics.The alliance can survive such variations, however the fascinating query now’s how sturdy it is going to be, which willdepend on how properly the 2 events handle their competing political priorities.