Baramulla, Jul 05: The voices of dissent against PDP from its own legislators is growing shrill with each passing day as more people are coming out in open to vent out their rage against the party leadership.
Member Legislative Assembly (MLA) Baramulla Javaid Hassan Beigh is the latest entry into the club of dissenting voices against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leadership saying the party never listened to its own leaders who had worked for its making since its inception.
“When a party-man sees his party collapsing like cards, it really pains and hurts. As of now, I have not joined any other party but I have decided to start my own mission to fight even though I am yet to consult my workers and my mentor Muzzafar Hussain Beigh,” Javaid Beigh said today.
Known for his fiery oration, Beigh minced no words in saying that like certain other party colleagues in the legislature, he too got a raw deal from the party leadership.
“When the party does not own you, what option remains with a worker or a leader who is associated with it. Recently, Abid Ansari, Imran Ansari, Abass Wani and Majid Paddar Sahib have already expressed their disappointment with party leadership, which they had even done on the floor of the house,” Beigh said.
Taking a dig on the party president Mehbooba Mufti, he said, “Our party chief ever-since she became Chief Minister, was inaccessible to us, and was only close to, and consulted those whose intentions were questionable.”
“Today PDP as a party is the option for only those having no other options. People who don’t have any good option in politics will remain there while the people who have options could serve people on different platforms,” he added.
Beigh also said that people join politics for respect and honour, but Mehbooba Mufti had never respected her own MLAs.
“They used us like dogs and left us on the streets,” he said.
He said this party (PDP) revolves around some people which were rejected by the public and were non-performers.
PDP MLA also said that this party was everything to him, but he lost faith in it once Mufti Mohammad Sayeed passed away.
Beigh also said that even those ministers who had won polls were seen begging at the doors of, and flattering, those who had lost.
“Mehbooba Mufti was only consulting those who were ill-intentioned. She trusted these sycophants and failed. Some around her would even tell her she was better than even the Sher-i-Kashmir Sheikh Abdullah,” Beigh told the media.
With disquiet within the party growing shrill since the fall of BJP-PDP coalition in the state, reports suggest that as many as 14 party MLAs are mulling to quit.
Baig added that no party legislator was ready for elections as people did not trust them. “Why should they?” he asked.
“We showed them dreams of azadi, self-rule, autonomy, return of power projects, relief against crackdowns, and livelihood to workers but did not deliver.”
He was referring to promises that have long been part of the PDP’s agenda. “Today if workers ask for one reason to be with us, I have nothing to say to them just as the party leadership has nothing to say to me,” he said.
Baig said that it was time to apologise to the Kashmiri people.
“We lied. We didn’t tell stone pelters about consequences,” he said. “We said they were innocent. What we condemned during Omar Abdullah’s tenure [saying stone pelting is a legitimate protest], when we faced the same in 2016, we said it’s a difficult job, use pellet guns.”
So far five PDP MLAs — Abid Ansari, Imran Raza Ansari, Mohammad Abbass Wani, Abdul Majid Paddar and now Javaid Hassan Beigh — have openly raised the banner of revolt against the party, while certain others are likely to follow suit in coming days.
Though PDOP had thus far maintained meaningful silence over the issue, today a senior party leader spoke about it, though feigning as if it was a minor in-party issue which he said could be resolved “amicably”.
But the disgruntled legislators seem adamant. They blame former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti of nepotism who they allege rehabilitated her “relatives only”, whom they called “self-styled leaders” who were “rejected by the people” – had “become power brokers”, and who often undermined the party’s elected representative and grassroots workers.
