Srinagar, Feb. 18 -- Efforts to convince political parties to participate in the Panchayat polls suffered a major setback on Tuesday when Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Conference (NC) and Congress reiterated their decision to stay away from the election citing prolonged detention of its leaders.
Chief Election Officer (CEO) Shailendra Kumar held an all party meeting on Tuesday to discuss the upcoming election for vacant Panchayat seats in the Union Territory.
However, the representatives of National Conference, Congress and PDP told the CEO to release the mainstream leaders in order to their participation in the election.
PDP's Surinder Chaudhary, who was flanked by Narinder Singh Raina, walked out of the meeting claiming that ...