Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Thursday expressed his surprise at both the PDP and the National Conference (NC) showing inclination to forge ties with the BJP to form government in Jammu and Kashmir, and added that such a development was completely new for the people of the state and his party.
"We have offered our support to PDP and stated that the Congress is ready to support PDP. But it looks to me quite strange that any Kashmir-based political party-be it the PDP or for that matter the National Conference-even thinking of supporting the BJP is something new for the people of Kashmir," he told ANI here.
Azad said that such steps will be seen as unbecoming on the part of the promises made by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the NC.
"Both the political parties had assured the people of Kashmir during the election campaign that each one of them who were trying to convince the people of Kashmir that it is their political party which has the capacity and capability to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party from entering into the Kashmir Valley," he said.
"The people of Kashmir have believed both National Conference and more so the PDP that they will be able to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party from government formation. Now, after the results have been declared and if either of the two political parties joins hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party I think this will be something which we cannot even think of," he added.
Earlier on Tuesday, Jammu and Kashmir gave a highly-fractured verdict in which the PDP emerged as the single largest party throwing up different possibilities in government formation.
The National Conference (NC) suffered a defeat as it secured only 15 seats against 28 that it had won in the last elections.