SRINAGAR, Nov 6: The Opposition, including CPI (M), Democratic Party Nationalist and Peoples Democratic Front (PDF), will meet the Centre’s appointed interlocutor Dineshwar Sharma, on November 8.
Mr Sharma arrived here on Monday on a five-day tour to state to hold all stakeholders in the Valley.
However, main opposition National Conference on Monday said they have not received any invitation so far from the interlocutor for a meeting. “So far we have not received any invitation, seeking meeting the interlocutor.
Once we received the invitation then we will decide whether we will meet him or not,” NC General Secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar said.
Lone CPI (M) MLA Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami said that he along with PDF chairman Hakim Yasin and state DPN chief Ghulam Hassan Mir will meet Mr Sharma on November 8.
“We will meet him at my residence here at 1100 hrs on Wednesday,” he added.
When asked what will be the agenda of the meeting, Mr Tarigami refused to answer, saying he will talk only after he has met the interlocutor. Mr Sharma arrived in summer capital, Srinagar on Monday afternoon on a five-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir to hold talks with all stakeholders on Kashmir.
The separatist organisations, besides civil society and Bar Association have already announced that they will not meet Mr Sharma. The two main Opposition parties in the state NC and Congress have questioned the mandate of Mr Sharma to hold talks on the Kashmir issue.
Terming the appointment of an interlocutor by the Centre for Jammu and Kashmir ‘nothing new’, NC president Farooq Abdullah on Sunday asserted that restoration of autonomy was the only way forward to resolve Kashmir issue.
“Government of India (GoI) should devise a sound Kashmir policy. I have very little expectation from this new interlocutor to J&K,” Dr Abdullah, who was recently re-elected as the president of main opposition in the state NC, he added.
Congress has asked the Centre to come clear about the mandate given to him and identify the stakeholders with whom talks will be held.
“Union Government should come clean about whether Mr Sharma was being sent to restore peace in the Valley or has he the mandate to find out the resolution of Kashmir issue,” senior Congress leader Tariq Hameed Karra said.
Mr Karra said if Mr Sharma’s task was to work for restoration of peace, then meeting police officials and mainstream politicians and ‘stage managed groups of people from different hues by certain police and civil administration officials’ makes some sense.
But, he said if he was appointed for resolving the Kashmir issue, then it was imperative upon the Government to identify the ‘stake holders’ first.
Mr Karra said the Government had willingly created huge confusion and still has to clear who actually the interlocutor would rope-in for talks.
He said, senior Union Ministers were contradicting each other viz a viz, the task assigned to interlocutor. “Just two hours after Home Minister Rajnath Singh announced the appointment of interlocutor, a junior minister in the Modi-government contradicted him.
MoS in PMO Jitendra Singh said there was no need for negotiations as there wasn’t any issue as far as Kashmir was concerned,” he added.
(UNI)
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