SRINAGAR: ” Setting aside their differences, parties of various hues today got together in the Assembly to pay rich tributes to former Chief Minister Mohammad Sayeed, with opposition National Conference saying the greatest tribute to the late PDP leader would be the resolution of Kashmir issue.
The House, where Mufti’s daughter and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was conspicuous by her absence, also paid tributes to former state Governor Gen (retd) K V Krishna Rao, former Speakers of Lok Sabha, Balram Jhakar and P A Sangma, three ex-ministers and two former members of the House. Opposition NC leader Omar Abdullah was also not present.
Mufti, who headed PDP-BJP government for 10 months, passed away on January 7.
Speaker Kavinder Gupta introduced the obituary references for the nine leaders, who had died between the last session of the assembly in October last year and beginning of the ongoing budget session yesterday.
Mohammad Shafi Uri of National Conference (NC), the first to speak, said Mufti had a glittering political career.
He chose the occasion to highlight the need for finding a solution to the Kashmir problem.
Uri, a former minister and ex-MP, said forming a regional party PDP by Mufti was a message to the “Delhi establishment that Jammu and Kashmir has a special status and special identity”. Mufti had left Congress to float PDP in 1999.
The NC leader said the greatest tribute to Mufti would be when all the members of the Assembly sit together and find a solution to the Kashmir issue. “Only then peace and reconciliation is possible,” he added.
He referred to the decision of the PDP founder to form an alliance with the BJP in the state following the fractured mandate in 2014 Assembly elections.
Despite Mufti terming the alliance as “coming together of North Pole and South Pole”, the yearning for peace and reconciliation and resolution of Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan continued, Uri said. He said the pursuit of peace was the policy of National Conference as well.
Uri said the people of not only the state but entire sub-continent were watching the Assembly as to what role “we are playing to keep the state united and, not only maintain but, strengthen Article 370 of the Constitution”.
Taking a dig at the BJP, the NC veteran said the global political scenario has changed and the buzzword now is development.
“Ek vidhan Ek Nishan (One constitution, one flag) is being raised no more,” he said referring to BJP’s old slogan with regard to Jammu and Kashmir which has a separate flag.
“We were told (by BJP) earlier about Babar (Mughal invader), now they go to Iran with Persian translation of Mirza Ghalib’s poetry,” he said in an apparent swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his recent visit to the Islamic Republic. (AGENCIES)
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