Raouf Dar
Srinagar Dec 23 (KINS): Reacting to PDP president Mehbooba Mufti’s statement that she would not contest any election until special status was restored under Article 370, BJP on Wednesday said she should first ask her District Development Council candidates who emerged winner to “resign”.
Calling the results of the Jammu and Kashmir local polls “very encouraging”, Mehbooba said that she would not contest any election until special status was restored under Article 370.
“When it comes to assembly polls, I will not file any elections until and unless Jammu and Kashmir’s own constitution is brought back, until Article 370 is restored,” she said.
The former Chief Minister was responding to a question on the Gupkar alliance, which includes National Conference and Mehbooba Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and the potential tussle – if state polls were to be held — over a Chief Ministerial candidate amid intense rivalries.
Reacting to her senior BJP leader from Kashmir Sofi Yusuf said she should first ask her DDC candidates who emerged winner to resign.
“Mehbooba is enacting drama that she won’t contest assembly polls. Before making such statement, she should ask her DDC candidates who won elections to resign. She said same thing before DDC elections then fielded her own candidates. We are ready to participate in Assembly polls,” Yusuf told news agency Kashmir Indepth News Service (KINS).
“We have been rivals but for the larger cause of J&K we can all get together. We are Kashmiris at the end of the day. We are not talking only about elections but for the larger cause of restoring what was lost,” Mehbooba said.
“Whenever assembly polls are held we will sit together and discuss (on Chief Ministership). I am not in the race,” she said.
She also defended her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s decision to partner with the BJP in an alliance that collapsed before time.
“My father made a deal with the devil. Mufti did not join hands with (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi but with the Prime Minister of India, to resolve the problems of Kashmir. My father tried to engage the BJP through an alliance. Our agenda was the same and we entered into the alliance on our terms. They agreed to everything, but after the government fell, they did what they wanted,” she said.
The Gupkar alliance won big in the first-ever District Development Council (DDC) polls across 20 districts in J&K, the first election in the region since the centre ended special status in August last year, turned the state into two Union Territories and detained scores of political leaders, including Mehbooba and National Conference leaders Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah. With inputs from NDTV (KINS)
