Excelsior Correspondent
DODA, Sept 23: Reiterating resolve of his party to work as a bridge between Indian and Pakistan to restore lasting peace in the entire South Asian region, patron of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Mufti Mohammad Sayeed today emphasised on the need of evolving consensus across political spectrum of the country to initiate meaningful dialogue with Pakistan to solve all issues including Kashmir. He said the normalcy between India and Pakistan was must for the socio-economic growth of the people of South Asian region.
Addressing an impressive public meeting at Doda, Mufti asked all political parties, particularly the BJP that issue of continuation of dialogue with Pakistan should be above partisan political interests. He reminded that it was during the NDA regime, under the leadership of Atal Behari Vajpayee, that a composite and meaningful dialogue process was started with Pakistan- which had shown encouraging results.
Referring to the lead taken by Vajpayee in 2003 during his visit to Kashmir, Mufti said it had come against a grim and potentially disastrous scenario as the two nuclear armies were in combat position following the attack on the Parliament. He reminded that the announced made by Mr Vajpayee on April 18, 2003 at Srinagar was historic because he had extended hands of friendship towards Pakistan at that crucial time.
While recalling the historical initiatives taken by the then Prime Minister for establishing peace in this region, Mufti said that PDP, through its conviction and vision, had convinced BJP leadership to take bold peace initiatives. He said that his party had pioneered and implemented the agenda of reconciliation and made it clear that the PDP would not allow the peace process to be derailed and sabotaged. “Peace process in one and only way to restore lasting peace in this region so our party would aggressively pursue this process”, he asserted and called upon his party workers to contribute for restoring peace in this region.
While referring towards the infamous brazenly rigged 1987 Assembly elections, Mufti said that people of the state had lost faith the ballot due to such manipulated and rigged elections.
“Democracy is the best way to address aspirations to the people and to involve people in the governance”, he remarked but regretted that successive NC regime in the state have never allowed the democracy to flourish in this region. It was only after formation of PDP that an alternative was emerged in the state. He observed that formation of PDP in 1999 was turning point in the history of Jammu and Kashmir because party has emerged as credible and real voice of people.
Assuring to solve all problems of the residents of Chenab Valley, Mufti said that PDP has formulated a comprehensive programme for the socio-economic growth the inhabitants of this belt. He said that party leadership was also aware of the dangerous impact on the ecology of this region due to construction of big dams.
Th Balbir Singh, Choudhary Zulfikar Ali, MLA, Peerzada Mansoor, MLA, Basharat Bukhari, MLA, Mehboob Iqbal, Sukhdev Sharma, Pritam Kotwal, Mirza Muzaffar Beigh, Abdul Rehman Kashmiri, Dr Abdul Majid, Talib Hussain and others also spoke on the occasion.
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