According to sources, the meeting of the 17 party legislators is being held in Jammu on February 12 which will be chaired by its All India General Secretary and Jammu and Kashmir in-charge, Prithvi Raj Chavan, to decide on the poll strategy. Both the NC and Congress will decide that how many of their members will vote on each seat which will come only after the independents and the panthers party decides on its support.

In fact the Panthers party is also delaying its decision on supporting the party and is likely to take its decision before NC and Congress hold their party meetings.

Sources said that while both the parties have asked their members to remain present in the winter capital the parties will be issuing their whips asking the MLAs to vote for a particular candidate. Congress Spokesman, Ravinder Sharma, said that the whip will be issued by the Congress Legislative party (CLP) leader and Chief Whip designated by the party to take action in case of any violation. Sources however said that the chances of cross voting for the remaining two seats of the Rajya Sabha are ruled out in the wake of the parliamentary amendment which has made the voting for the Rajya Sabha polls open.

While the winning chances depend on the presence of the votes, as per the present strength NC and Congress alone have only the votes on one seat. Although Congress and NC have together more MLAs for both the seats than PDP or BJP alone, however Sources said that none of the parties likes to leave anything to chance.

NC Chief Whip, Mubarak Gul, said that the party is issuing the whip to its MLAs for making sure that they don't vote for the opposition candidate. He said that the whip is being issued in a party meeting which is being held before February 13, when the polls are scheduled to be held on the two seats of upper house of parliament.