National Conference lost ground, now solely banking on Delhi’s patronage: Mehbooba

Kupwara(Kashmir), May 10  ­– Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) President Mehbooba Mufti has said having lost track with the State’s ground realities and its people, the National Conference (NC) was now solely banking on Delhi’s patronage to stay in power.

Addressing a series of public meetings in Kupwara assembly segment of Baramulla parliamentary constituency today, Mehbooba accused NC of always having spoken different languages in Srinagar, Jammu and Delhi on the State’s political and economic issues. “When in Jammu or Delhi, NC leaders join the voices of RSS and BJP in maligning the J&K’s pro-people voices and once in Srinagar they take a diametrically different line to suit the local environment,” she said and added that having no agenda for the people, NC has now become a piggy-rider of different parties in different regions to suit its interests.

Mehbooba said the miseries people of Jammu & Kashmir have been undergoing for the past five decades are the outcome of the deceitful tactics resorted to by the NC leaders in their lust for power. “To quote some recent instances of NC’s dubious role, the party in a hurry to grab power couldn’t bargain with the Government of India for any political or economic concession for the State when it was in a position to do so in 1996 and how it rushed through the formation of Government after the latest 2008 polls without having even a Common Minimum Program with Congress reflects the power-lust of once the premiere political party of the State,” she said.

Mehbooba said it is a known fact that, when it was in power, how NC sabotaged every move aimed at including the separatists in the dialogue process. “Even the special session of the State Legislature in June 2000 to pass the autonomy resolution was purportedly convened by the NC Government in a huff to scuttle the proposed move of the then Vajpayee-led Government of releasing the Hurriet Conference leaders to start negotiations with them,” she said and added that everybody knows how the then NC Government later, overtly and covertly, played a spoiler of the talks between late Majid Dar and the Government in 2001.

Mehbooba cautioned that Jammu & Kashmir could perhaps land up in a bigger trouble this time if NC is allowed to fiddle with the democratic institutions and processes in the State, the way it did in 1987 in the run up to the worst ever political turmoil the State underwent for the past two decades. “But as the true representatives of the people, PDP would fight every such move of the NC government tooth and nail that is aimed at robbing the State’s people of their democratic rights,” she said.

PDP leaders Abdul Rehman Veeri, Mohammad Khalil Bandh, Abdul Razaq Zawoora and Fayaz Ahmad also addressed the meeting.

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