Drabu quits PDP, praises Mufti; makes no mention of Mehbooba

Hopes history judges PDP-BJP alliance with complexity

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, Dec 6: In a major setback to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), former Finance Minister, Dr Haseeb Drabu, who had estranged relations with the party after being removed as the Finance Minister on March 13 this year by then Chief Minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, today formally resigned from the party lauding PDP founder Mufti Mohammad Sayeed but not mentioning anything about Mehbooba.
“Bidding adieu to PDP. Another phase of life over,” Dr Drabu tweeted and also posted his resignation letter on the twitter.
Lavishing all praises on former Chief Minister and PDP founder late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Drabu said: “I do want to remember Mufti Sahib who sought me out and got me into politics. Working with him made me realize that politics is not the `last refuge of scoundrels’, Occasionally, people with intellectual integrity, personal honesty and moral courage can also be found here. I was exceptionally lucky to have worked with him”.
Referring to the PDP-BJP alliance, which he scripted along with couple of other PDP leaders and BJP team headed by party’s pointman on Jammu and Kashmir, Ram Madhav after hung verdict in 2014 Assembly elections, Dr Drabu hoped that when history judges Mufti Sahib and his decision to ally with the BJP, it does so in the context and with the complexity it deserves.
Wishing PDP all the very best, Dr Drabu, who represented Rajpora constituency in the dissolved Assembly, hoped the PDP will contribute to the resolution of long impending political issue, help in bringing social order, peace and prosperity in the State.
The former Finance Minister, who had presented four consecutive budgets of the PDP-BJP coalition Government before being replaced by Altaf Bukhari in March this year, didn’t agree with Governor Satya Pal Malik’s timing and manner in which the Legislative Assembly was dissolved on November 21.
“My Legislative engagement has prematurely come to an end with the dissolution of the State Assembly by the Governor. I don’t agree with the timing and manner in which it was done. It doesn’t credit either the democratic system or its custodian participants with any glory whatsoever,” Dr Drabu said.
On his resignation, he said: “this had been coming for a while now.
“Even though, I have not been a dissident, you are aware I had resigned from the Cabinet, Assembly and party nearly two years ago, which you didn’t accept. I have disengaged myself from the party affairs for quite some time now,” he said in his resignation letter.
However, he said, he didn’t precipitate the matter because he believed it was ethically and morally wrong to leave the party under whose aegis one has contested and won the seat in the Legislative Assembly.
“Now that it is over, I’m hereby resigning from the PDP,” he said.
In his resignation letter, Drabu mentioned about his association with the PDP saying it has been exactly four and half years since he joined the PDP but said: “I can’t say that I enjoyed every moment of it. But when I look back at it, it has been an enriching and enlightening association”.
“During my sojourn into politics, I successfully contested an election under the political and ideological banner of PDP, became a member of the Legislative Assembly and was inducted into the Cabinet. As such, in this brief period, I got a flavour of politics in all its fascinating mélange ranging from conviction, compulsion and compromise to principles, pledges and the perfidies.
“This journey has had its fair share of highs and lows, successes and failure, appreciation and condemnation, contentment and frustrations and agreement and disagreements. There are many things that I am thankful for, many more I am grateful for and yet much more that I am distressed about. A slice of full life in itself as it were,” Dr Drabu wrote.

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