Srinagar: People’s Conference president Sajad Gani Lone on Friday accused PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti of “defaming” the entire political class of Kashmir.
Lone’s remarks came a day after Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter and PDP leader Iltija Mufti accused People’s Conference leadership of threatening and intimidating her party leaders to break them away from the PDP.
“By branding every political figure an agency operative, Mehbooba was defaming the entire political class of Kashmir. She is abusing our political system. She is abusing our political leaders. Is everybody on sale here?” Lone told reporters here.
The MLA from Handwara in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district asked Mehbooba Mufti to look within before pointing fingers at others.
Targeting the PDP, the People’s Conference president said PDP founder Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is known as the “biggest party-breaker” here.
“He (Sayeed) broke NC into two parts as the head of the Congress in J&K in 1983. I won’t remain silent now. I am not a punching bag.
“She and her father were the chief ministers of the BJP (coalition) and she is blaming me. Her father was the (Union) home minister and agencies were reporting to him. He was their boss. You are the daughter of the boss of the agencies. How dare you talk like this?” he added.
He asked the PDP chief to offer an unconditional apology for her recent remarks justifying pellet and bullet firing on Kashmiris.
“No matter how much drama you do, you will have to unconditionally apologise,” Lone said, adding that his party would run daily social media campaigns until the apology was made.
He dismissed the PDP’s focus on his party as a deliberate attempt to divert attention.
Asserting that the PDP was itself created by agencies from existing political stock, Lone said Mehbooba Mufti assumes the same of every other party.
“They were handed a ‘khichdi’, which is called a coalition of individuals. If any individual runs away from them, they drop to zero in that constituency,” he said.
“Just imagine for five seconds, the agencies are doing this at Sajad Lone’s behest, the one you go to Delhi and call a separatist’s son. You are the home minister’s daughter. Meaning, is a separatist’s son scaring the home minister’s daughter?” he added.
Lone questioned Mehbooba Mufti’s appearance at the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protest in Delhi “while hundreds of young Kashmiris were killed or detained under the Public Safety Act during her own tenure as chief minister”.
“With what face did you go there? This ‘pellet queen’ must answer,” Lone said.
