A pre-poll alliance was announced on Tuesday ahead of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections between Awami Ittihad Party and Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Movement, Greater Kashmir reported.

“We have come together at a time when the state is in dire need of revival,” Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Movement chairperson Shah Faesal said during a media briefing at Press Club Kashmir in Srinagar. “We have named our alliance as Peoples United Front.” Faesal said he will make sure not to let people down and give them a viable option. Faesal also posted on Twitter after the announcement of the alliance.

Awami Ittihad Party chairperson Engineer Abdul Rasheed Sheikh said that the newly formed alliance will be inclusive and work towards providing justice to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. “Peoples United Front will be a credible alternative to all three divisions of the state and people should be given equal right in all three divisions,” Greater Kashmir quoted him as saying.

The alliance’s coordination committee chairperson Javiad Mustafa Mir said the coalition will be monitored by a six-member committee with three members from each party, Global News Kashmir reported. “The alliance has been necessitated by the ongoing political uncertainty in the state, apprehensions with regard to assault on the special status and the absence of any credible political alternative in the State that could address both the political vacuum and the absence of good governance,” Mir told the news agency.

Rasheed said that he was confident that the Peoples United front would be able to form the government on its own while Faesal vowed that “the alliance is committed to protect not only the Article 35-A and Article 370 but will struggle sincerely to achieve what has been snatched or what the people of the state deserve”.

The party also released a 45-point agenda and a roadmap of the alliance over several important political and governance matters.