Farooq Abdullah destroying scope of combined resistance to BJP: Naeem Akhtar

SRINAGAR — Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has reacted sharply to the Dr Farooq Abdullah’s anti PDP ‘rants’, stating that the NC patriarch is actually destroying any scope of combined resistance to the designs of BJP and their assault on special position in Jammu and Kashmir.

PDP senior leader and former Minister, Naeem Akhtar said that at the national level, Dr Farooq is jumping from one state capital to other to promote a Maha-gatbandan against the BJP. “There he will not make any difference to whether Maha-gatbandan becomes a reality or not but where he could offer a joint resistance in the state, perhaps under the pressure of his corruption case currently going on at Srinagar court, he is trying to do what suits the BJP and the Prime Minister Modi the most,” Akhtar said.

He added that PDP is the only party which has offered democratic resistance to the Central government consistently about the interests of the state within the constitution of the country.

Akhtar said that PDP President, Mehbooba Mufti has proved that before the 2014 elections and after that when the party had to align with the BJP, it did so on terms which were discussed for two months. “And within the government as head of the coalition government and as chief minister, she resisted every attempt by the Central government to take any inroads on the constitutional position of the state, compelling BJP to announce unilateral ceasefire, prevented NIA to arrest those who dissent, freed more than 12 thousand youth who were arrested in stone pelting cases,” Akhtar said and added that such a stand left BJP with no choice but to run away from coalition.

He said that after the fall of the government, Mehbooba Mufti is the only voice who has been consistent in raising voice against the crackdown on innocent people, separatists, Jamaat-e-Islami, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, religious bodies and attempts to commit constitutional frauds on the state.

“Compared to this, Dr Farooq Abdullah who is the senior most politician in the state has been swinging like a pendulum. Only three months back, he was ready to join a coalition with the PDP and today he is maligning the party, levelling false and fabricated charges against it,” said the PDP leader.

Akhtar said that the coalition, of which PDP was the part, was dictated by the numbers by the election results in which both the parties were at par and forming coalition was a brave attempt to engage with the new India which is dominated by the Hindutva forces.

“And PDP successfully resisted that for four years. What havoc it would have caused to the state if left alone is now becoming obvious in every part of the state. It has now become visible that how the BJP is trying to divide the state, divide communities and disempower the people of the state, launching onslaught on newspapers and other media and with ultimate aim of doing away with the special position,” said Akhtar and added that compared to this, there was no presence of BJP in 1996 when Dr Farooq Abdullah with sixty MLAs aligned unnecessarily with the BJP.

The PDP leader stated that Dr Farooq’s decision to join BJP was aimed to accommodate his son as a minister. “To get this done, he gave away whatever was left of state’s economic prospects in the shape of power projects to the Centre. It is Dr Farooq Abdullah who consolidated forces of official terror and patronized and promoted them while making BJP Halaal in Kashmir politics. And, this all flows from the historic 1947 accession,” said Akhtar, adding that after the state acceded to India, no party or ideology needs a visa or a passport to enter the state as that road was opened with the accession itself.

Akhtar added that PDP believes in fighting those ideologies politically rather than by compromising on the state’s interests as National Conference has done right from 1938.