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| Muftis' blistering attack on NC-Congress coalition | | Looking Beyond Kashmir | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Aug 13: The People's Democratic Party (PDP), which was established 13 years ago by former J&K Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to neutralize the influence of the National Conference (NC) of the Abdullahs, has been very active for months now. It has been organizing political activities and holding conventions of party workers at regular intervals in Kashmir with a view to consolidating and expanding further its constituency. It has been successful in mobilizing public opinion against what it calls the most corrupt, irresponsible, undemocratic and insensitive State Government led by the NC and blindly supported by the Congress. That the PDP had already created a strong and stable constituency for itself even before the formation of the present Government became clear in 2008, when it won more seats and got more votes, as compared to the NC. There is a view that the PDP will further improve its position in the next Assembly elections and that it may even form the next Government in alliance with the Congress. This assessment appears to be correct. The NC has indeed lost much of its political space because of what the PDP calls its mis-governance.
The PDP leadership is not only organizing impressive political activities in the Valley, which, of course, is its core constituency. It is also undertaking similar activities in different places in Jammu Pradesh to enlist the support of its people. During the last few months, the PDP had organized scores of public meetings and held conventions of party workers to remain in limelight. Yesterday also, it organized a well-attended public meeting in Gandhi Nagar, Jammu. The PDP patron Mufti Sayeed and party president and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Mehbooba Mufti were the main speakers. They attacked the NC leadership from right and left and painted it black, opportunist, anti-people and anti-democratic. They used very strong words against the NC leadership, especially the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah. Significantly, they also attacked the Congress and held it equally responsible for the people's woes and neglect, as also for the miserable plight of the unemployed youth. They even ridiculed the Congress leadership by saying that it is not interested at all in the empowerment of panchayats, Panchs and Sarpanchs and that the Deputy Chief Minister, who belongs to the Congress party, has willfully denied the people of the State the opportunity to elect new Municipal Corporations and Municipal Committees. So much so, the PDP leadership contemptuously dismissed the Congress as a B-team of the NC. It said that the Congress has been playing second fiddle in the present dispensation. Besides, the PDP leadership dismissed as a hollow slogan the Congress's demand seeking adoption and implementation of 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments.
The Muftis said many other things. They talked about Central Asia. They talked about economic independence. They talked about the internal and external dimension of Kashmir. They talked about confidence building measures as well as New Delhi's Kashmir policy and they also gave the people of Jammu to understand that it has a definite roadmap for tackling the issues facing its people. We will provide basic amenities to the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, they said, adding the PDP, unlike the NC, believes in the people's democracy.
No one would disagree with what they said about the NC and the Congress. But what they said about the NC and the Congress may not induce the people of Jammu province to turn towards this party. There are reasons for that. For example, the people of Jammu province, barring a few disgruntled elements here and there, will support only those parties which assure them that they will hasten the process of integration with New Delhi, end discrimination with them, give them equal rights and share and consider them as one of the three most important factors in the State. They will not support those who wish to widen the gulf between the State and New Delhi under one pretext or the other. Mufti Sayeed is not an ordinary politician. He knows where the shoe pinches and what ails Jammu and what are the aspirations of this Pradesh. He has to assure and reassure the people of Jammu Pradesh that his politics will be different from that of the patently Kashmir-centric and one community-centric NC. Once he does so and convinces the people, the PDP may extend its area of influence beyond the Kashmir Valley. |
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