Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Mar 29: The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), president Mehbooba Mufti today said the National Conference has converted itself into an available appendage for sharing power with whosoever rules Delhi and by doing so it has lost its regional representative character.
Addressing a number of roadside rallies in Pulwama segment of Anantnag Parliamentary constituency, Mehbooba said the ruling party has abandoned governance and left people to their own devices of survival in the belief that it can stick to power through its ‘special contacts’ at the Centre.
The PDP president said her party is fighting the present Lok Sabha election to reverse the trend of the elected representatives becoming agents of others in the Parliament just to share crumbs of power.
She said, “we are going to the Parliament with a definite agenda to bring Kashmir problem under the national focus and change the approach of the Union towards Jammu & Kashmir, which till now has been treated only as a security project.”
She said of all the regional parties in the country NC stands out for its dubious role and its inability to raise vital issues facing the state.
She said while all other regional parties are asserting their regional representative character within democratic system to earn benefits for their states, NC has historically done the reverse.
“Instead of seeking any benefit for the state, they have been representing for decades, NC always found comfort in surrendering the political authority, the administrative space, natural resources and institutions to the Centre,” said Mehbooba.
Mehbooba said people of the state had so far voted NC in most elections with the hope that it would be able to safeguard the interests of the state within the Union.
While NC never lived up to that expectation but its present tenure in the Parliament has perhaps been the worst. Its members collaborated in the hanging of Mohammad Afzal Guroo, while the State Governments of Punjab and Tamil Nadu and their Members of Parliament stood up for similarly placed cases with the result the 2013 witnessed only hanging in the entire country, that of Mohammad Afzal Guroo.
Being in power both at the Centre and in the state, the NC presided over the killing of hundreds of youth and giving an entire generation a bad name of being anti-nationals, criminals, drug addicts, LeT elements etc.
Mehbooba said the coming Lok Sabha polls are a fight for dignity and justice for the people of the state and whosoever forms the Government in the Centre, the PDP will engage all, be it the opposition, regional parties and other shades of opinion both in and outside the Parliament, to seek a new Kashmir policy along with a roadmap for its implementation.
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