Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Dec 19: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) today alleged that present Government has established its anti people credentials beyond any doubt and no respite from mounting miseries was expected till its exit.
Addressing a joint meeting of Party senior leaders, legislators, district and zone presidents and prominent workers, the Party president Mehbooba Mufti said the Coalition Government had left no one in any doubt about its intentions, priorities and inability to address people’s problems.
Senior Party leaders Maulvi Iftikhar Hussein Ansari, general secretary Mohammad Dilawar Mir, A R Veeri, Abdul Gaffar Sofi, Mohammad Rafi Mir, Nizamuddin Bhat, Naeem Akhtar, Syed Altaf Bukhari, Advocate Abdul Haq Khan, Peerzada Mansoor Hussein and Saifuddin Bhat also addressed the meeting.
Mehbooba said the Omar Abdullah Government had in four years of its rule brought immense miseries to the people and having refused to learn from its failures it has made its doom inevitable. The people of the state now realize the difference that a State Government can make to their lives and would surely respond to this through the democratic weapon of vote, she added.
She said this Government had the advantage of having inherited a state that had by and large come back on rails after the militancy and repressive Government of Farooq Abdullah between 1996 and 2002. “But instead of building on that solid foundation it mismanaged the situation so much that the state suffered humiliation as a political entity and its residents have once again been rendered destitute and dis- empowered” she added. Lambasting the coalition she said that the rulers were focused only on their personal luxuries and dealt with people with an arrogance that borders on contempt.
Declaring that her Party would soon hold district level demonstrations against power crisis, non availability of cooking gas and rations and price rise, Mehbooba said power sector had shown great improvement up to 2008 and as soon as this Government took charge it reintroduced the trademark NC schedule which meant more darkness than light even though the tariff has been raised four times in four years.
She said during this period the state had added 500 MW additional power after the completion of its own projects but the supply has gone down. “Where has this additional power gone? Is the revenue from additional generation going into the luxuries of the rulers who go around in cars each worth more than a crore?” Mehbooba wondered and said the NC led Government can no longer escape public scrutiny and they would face public wrath in elections no matter when.
Mehbooba said instead of addressing the grim cooking gas crisis and shortage of ration and water Omar Abdullah is coming up with a new slogan every day.
She said that it is the people of J&K who will decide about who forms the next Government and no manipulations or mind games would succeed in the face of peoples power. “Instead of begging others for help in elections the Chief Minister should have found time to see the long queues of respectable people waiting for gas cylinders in sub zero temperatures and tried to reduce their miseries”, she said and added “for me personally it is most painful to see young and old, respectable people being treated like beggars”.
Mehbooba said the efforts at putting up a “grand alliance” by Omar Abdullah are in fact a loud and clear recognition of PDP as the leading political force of the state.
Referring to the unemployment problems Mehbooba said our highly talented youth have been rendered idle because of the Government’s inability to promote private sector and provide free and fair entry into government services. She said though the PDP led Government had been tied by the MOU signed by Farooq Abdullah Government with the Centre that no recruitment in the Government would be made it still provided Government jobs to thousands of young people.
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