Srinagar: The Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) on Wednesday accused the ruling National Conference (NC) of using lack of statehood as an excuse to “hide its inability” in fulfilling its electoral promises.
In its monthly newsletter Speak Up, the party said the NC “failed” to fulfill the bare minimum expected from it.
“National Conference has failed to fulfill the bare minimum expected of it. Whether it is reservation, unemployment, electricity, or governance, it has used the excuse of not having statehood to hide its inability to fulfill its electoral promises,” the PDP said.
It said, as the cold arrived, Kashmiris braced in anticipation that perhaps the government would get them uninterrupted electricity at a cut rate, as winter this year has been predicted to be colder and longer.
“… alas, their hopes went in vain,” instead, the government dug in its heels on the installation of prepaid metres, the party said.
“With our economy in shambles, in a Kashmir where tourism took a hit, horticulture has suffered huge losses due to the closure of the national highway, and the effects of the Red Fort blast still linger, instead of facilitating the revival of our economy, the government is stuck on prepaid metres, as if our economy had not already been torpedoed by the above events,” the Mehbooba Mufti-led party said.
It said that when the government should have been focused on solving the problems of reservation and unemployment, “It decided the best course of action was the demolition of homes in the freezing cold, leaving helpless families without a roof over their heads.”
Statehood should not prevent the ruling party from providing people with 200 free units of electricity or gas cylinders, the PDP asserted.
“What is the difference between places like UP, Bihar, and J&K? Muslim homes are being razed to the ground here too. And the same CM who was elected with nearly fifty seats has the temerity to call our people land grabbers,” it said.
The “trigger-happy bureaucrats”, encouraged by the words of their CM, are “bulldozing homes left, right, and centre,” it said.
“While the NC could not live up to its promises, what it became was an enforcer for Government of India’s Bulldozer Raj,” the party said in its newsletter.
