SPECIAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORT | THE TROJAN PLOUGH
SRINAGAR — For generations, the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference (NC) proudly guarded its status as the “Grand Old Party” of the Valley. Its red flag, bearing the iconic plough symbol, represented a rigid, tightly controlled cadre fiercely loyal to the Abdullah dynasty.
But an extensive, data-driven political audit by The Times Link reveals that the National Conference has been structurally re-engineered from within. A highly coordinated influx of 13 top-tier powerbrokers and foundational architects from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has effectively taken over the ruling party’s legislative and key district organisational machinery.
The structural infiltration is undeniable: 8 sitting Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in the current house are battle-hardened former PDP generals who won under the NC banner, while other PDP heavyweights have systematically seized control of vital NC district wings, including the highly contested Pulwama district command. They have imported their entire political networks, micro-cadres, and tactical blueprints straight into the NC infrastructure.
This isn’t a case of political refugees looking for shelter. This is a strategic hijacking that has fundamentally altered the DNA of the National Conference.
THE SILENT TAKEOVER: HOW THE GREEN INFILTRATED THE RED
[ THE PDP DEFUNCT MACHINE ] [ THE NC HISTORIC SHELL ]
• 13 Elite Cross-Over Bosses • Legacy Cadre Displaced
• 8 Sitting MLAs & Key District Chiefs • Traditional Base Sidelined
│ │
└─────────────► [ THE HYBRID CORE ] ◄──────┘
• Brand Identity: National Conference
• Operational Engine: Pure PDP
Mapping the Takeover: The 13-Leader Network
The scale of this operation becomes clear when you trace how these 13 leaders have displaced traditional NC workers, positioning themselves in the legislature or atop critical district hierarchies.
1. District Srinagar: The Capital’s New Command
In the very heart of the NC’s historic capital bastion, the party’s operational narrative and media strategy are now entirely dictated by former green-camp loyalists.
- Tanveer Sadiq (Sitting MLA / Ex Dy Mayor PDP): Once a prominent urban face for the PDP in Srinagar Municipal Corporation as a councillor & Dy Mayor, Sadiq has pulled off the ultimate political migration. He doesn’t just sit in the assembly; as Chief Spokesperson and a vital advisor to the high command, he now shapes the public voice of the National Conference.
- AhsanPardesi (Sitting MLA / Ex Leader PDP) &Ghulam Qadir Pardesi (Ex-MLC PDP): This powerful duo wielded immense structural influence for the PDP in Srinagar. By shifting wholesale to the NC, they handed the PDP’s urban mobilisation machine directly over to the red flag.
2. District Budgam: The Legislative Anchors
- Dr. Shafi Wani (Sitting MLA / Ex-MLA PDP)
- Saifudin Bhat (Sitting MLA / Ex-MLC PDP):In Budgam, a district critical to the NC’s claims of regional dominance, the ground operations are steered by these two former PDP titans. Dr. Wani’s (from Beerwah Constituency) and Mr.Bhat’s (from Khansahib Constituency) legislative victories under the NC banner cement a reality where the party’s local power relies heavily on a recycled PDP vote bank. Both can be dangerous for NC if they join hands with Aga Ruhullah in the coming days.
3. District Baramulla & Kupwara: The Northern Syndicate
North Kashmir has seen the most aggressive displacement of legacy NC workers by incoming PDP heavyweights.
- Javaid Baig (Sitting MLA / Ex MLA PDP)& Safina Baig (Ex-DDC Chairperson): This political power duo has effectively monopolised the district’s power dynamic. Javaid Baig, who won Baramulla for the PDP in 2014, now holds it for the NC, while Safina Baig’s deep roots in the local governance machinery mean that the administrative levers of Baramulla are run by a team with deep PDP loyalty.
- Javaid Dar (Sitting MLA / Ex Candidate PDP): A firebrand PDP leader whose father was an old close associate of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Javaid Dar contested J&K Legislative Assembly elections for PDP in 2002 and was with them until 2008, after PDP denied him a ticket and instead fielded Dilawar Mir from Rafiabad.
- Javaid Mirchal (Sitting MLA / Ex MLC PDP): Mirchal’s legislative grip in the frontier district of Kupwara and Karnah Constituency means that the NC’s northernmost outpost is entirely dependent on an operative trained in the rival camp.
4. District Anantnag & Pulwama: Seizing the Southern Command
This is the ultimate ideological insult to legacy NC workers. The NC has staffed its southern wing with the exact people who founded and built the PDP to destroy the NC twenty years ago.
- ZafarKhatana (Sitting MLA / Ex-Leader / VC Gujjar Board):Khatana’s shift allows this crossover syndicate to control the vital tribal vote bank, a demographic the traditional NC elite historically struggled to reach.
- Peer Mohammad Hussain (Ex-MLA): As an original founding father of the PDP alongside Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, his inclusion in the NC structure represents an institutional surrender by the NC high command. He, along with his two sons-in-law, Mansoor Hussain (Ex MLA PDP) and Ishfaq Wani (employee in Legislative Assembly), were PDP key contacts in NC.
- Mohammad Khalil Bandh (Ex MLA PDP / NC District President, Pulwama) & Bari Andrabi (Ex-DDC Chairperson): For two decades, Bandh was the ultimate PDP enforcer who held Pulwama like a fortress against the NC. Though he missed entering the current assembly, the NC high command handed him the absolute keys to the kingdom by appointing him NC District President for Pulwama. The entire grassroots re-mobilisation of the NC in this critical southern belt is now explicitly run by a former PDP Cabinet Minister.
Legacy Cadres Defeated: The Internal Rebellion
This internal coup has left the National Conference’s traditional, multigenerational base completely disenfranchised. For decades, old-school NC workers risked their lives, properties, and political futures to defend the party against the rise of the PDP. Today, they find themselves systematically sidelined by their former executioners.
“The high command has sold our loyalty to the people we fought for twenty-six years,” a visibly angry, third-generation NC worker from Srinagar stated under strict anonymity. “We took the blows on the ground. Now, ex-PDP stalwarts control our district offices and sit in the assembly in our name. The flag outside the office is red, but everything happening inside is green.”
The Verdict: A Hybrid Regime
The data leaves no room for ambiguity. The National Conference may have won the mandate, but it has lost its institutional sovereignty. By allowing 13 of the PDP’s most calculating, organisationally good minds to capture 8 critical legislative seats, the chief spokesperson’s desk, and vital district presidencies, the NC has been hollowed out from within.
The engine driving the ruling party’s parliamentary and district machinery is built, fuelled, and operated by the ghost of the People’s Democratic Party. The plough has been hijacked, and it is now tilling a very different political field.
Future Treachery
The JKNC old guard is worried about the future shift by these 8 MLA’s in planning a defection within NC and destabilising the government by again joining hands with the enemies of NC. An old guard of NC looked worried and said, “That, after the death of Sheikh Nazir Sahab, there were efforts by a lobby within NC to get outsiders into the party to weaken the old guard. Now, after the death of Mustafa Kamal sahib, things in NC will get worse, and the outsiders will completely hijack the party. Giving the example of “Peer Afaq, a party stalwart from the 80s, and Irfan Shah, the party stalwart and son of Khawaja Ghulam Mohiudin Shah, former minister and general secretary of JKNC is a clear indication. Both of them were even denied tickets in the 2024 assembly elections and instead given to the traditional enemies of JKNC.
