Srinagar: Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday said voting is the only power left with people of Jammu and Kashmir as the BJP-ruled Centre is making all efforts to suppress their voices.
“All kinds of injustices are being done and Jammu and Kashmir has been turned into a jail. To suppress the voice of people here, Amit Shah broke the PDP. They took away legislators, ministers and members of parliament from the PDP so that they can finish off the voice of the party,” Mufti told reporters in Anantnag district, 55 kilometres from here.
“Now people of Kashmir are left with just their votes,” she pointed out.
She said several parties were formed in Jammu and Kashmir after the “illegal” abrogation of Article 370 so that the Centre could send to Parliament the leaders favoured by it.
“It is a different matter if you want to rig that too, so that you can take to parliament those blue-eyed leaders whose parties were formed after 2019. What can one do about it?” the PDP chief said.
“It is for the people of the country to ponder that it took a long time for the people here to have trust in the power of vote. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had to announce from Red Fort that elections in J&K will be free and fair,” she added. (With inputs from PTI)
Mufti would’ve given all 3 LS seats in Kashmir to NC if she was consulted: Parra
Mehbooba Mufti would have supported the NC on all three Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir if Farooq Abdullah or Omar Abdullah had consulted her before announcing their decision to contest, senior PDP leader Waheed ur Rehman Parra said on Thursday.
Mufti, the president of the PDP, on March 8 expressed unhappiness over the National Conference contesting all three Lok Sabha constituencies in Kashmir, saying the decision was “disappointing” and a “setback to the hopes of the people of J&K”.
She also accused the NC of reducing their Peoples’ Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) to a “joke”.
“If Farooq Abdullah or Omar Abdullah had told Mehbooba-ji to give all these seats to them, as far as I know, she would have done it,” Parra told reporters in Pulwama, 32 km from here.
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) youth president said while the PAGD alliance had been working for five years, the NC leaders were now making “arrogant statements” about being the number one party.
“For five years, they kept this alliance for DDC polls, corporation elections and many other issues. When it was time to keep people united, they decided to divide people. And their arrogance in stating that our party is nowhere, we have no vote share,” he said.
Parra said the National Conference had won the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in Kashmir due to a situation of boycott.
“They won in a situation of boycott (in 2019) and now claim that the NC is the number one party and the PDP is nowhere on the ground. I think the people of Jammu and Kashmir keep an eye on every statement and every leader and they will decide like they did in 2002,” he added.
Hitting out at the NC MPs, Parra asked what have they achieved during their five-year tenure in the Lok Sabha.
“As far as PDP is concerned, we are for unity and our intentions were sincere. They had three MPs in the Lok Sabha. What did they do? What issues did they raise? When the state land eviction drive was on, it was Mehbooba Mufti who protested outside the Parliament. Even when ED summons Farooq Abdullah, it is Mehbooba Mufti who raises her voice,” he said. (With inputs from PTI)
