Posted on

Dent in Gupkar alliance- Eleven leaders from PDP join BJP in Rajouri- welcomed by J&K BJP president Ravindra Raina

Eleven leaders from PDP and their supporters joined the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district on Tuesday. The PDP leaders joined the saffron party in the presence of J&K BJP president Ravinder Raina. PDP which lost 11 leaders along with the supporters is a part of the Gupkar alliance. This event lends a huge dent in the progress and the image of the alliance.

The leaders who joined the BJP are PDP zonal president Sukhdev Singh; Subedar Gian Chand; Prithvi Raj Khokhar; Capt Ram Lal Choudhary; Bhagwan Dass; Tara Chand, Bachan Singh; Ajay Choudhary; Mohinder Singh; Sushil Kumar; and Dr Shadi Lal. Apart from the leaders, hundreds of their supporters too joined the BJP.

Terming the PDP as a sunken ship, Ravinder Raina welcomed the boat jumpers from PDP into the party fold.

Raina further commented that continuous Pakistan-favouring rhetoric and anti-national uttering by senior PDP leadership has made it lose the faith of the public as well as its leaders completely.

On the other hand, National Conference patron and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah had recently hit out at those who were labeling the Gupkar Alliance parties as a “gang”.  He said that the Gupkar alliance members are not enemies of the nation but a group of believers in an India of Mahatama Gandhi. The NC leader said parties which are part of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) cannot fight on a single election symbol, which is why they will be putting up joint candidates during the upcoming District Development Council (DDC) elections in Jammu and Kashmir.

Seven mainstream parties of Jammu and Kashmir had come together to form the PAGD on October 15. The alliance has been formed with an objective to seek the restoration of the erstwhile state’s special status. National Conference, People’s Democratic Party, People’s Conference, Awami National Conference, CPM, CPI and J&K People’s Movement are part of the political amalgam. Hitting out at the BJP, Farooq said that the national party was trying to divide the people on the basis of religion.

Posted on

Mehbooba Mufti talks about bridge of peace with neighbouring countries after the episode of her (seditious) remarks on tricolour

After her remarks on the tricolour, against which a case has been filed, Mehbooba Mufti has spoken about a bridge of peace between India and her neighbours.

Last year on August 5, the special state status of Jammu & Kashmir was rendered null and void by reorganizing the state into two union territories- J&K and Ladakh. After that the parties of the erstwhile state have come on a single platform (Gupkar alliance) to protest against this decision of the GOI.

Mehbooba Mufti along with other political leaders was taken into custody on August 5, 2019 when the centre repealed Article 370 that granted J&K autonomy under India’s constitution. Mehbooba apart from being kept incarcerated in detention for over a year was also slapped with the PSA.

After her release from the detention, she had made a controversial remark. In her 83 seconds audio speech to her followers, the PDP leader had vowed to continue her “struggle for the restoration of Article 370’’ and the resolution of the Kashmir issue.  Again last Friday she had said that she was not interested in contesting elections or holding the Tricolour till the constitutional changes enforced on 5 August 2019, were rolled back. She had also stated that she would hold the Tricolour only when the separate flag of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was restored.

Some of the senior leaders in PDP like TS Bajwa, Hassan Ali Waffa and Bed Mahajan were unhappy with Mehbooba’s statement on Tricolour, so they had resigned from the PDP.

BJP leaders had hit out at Mehbooba for her remarks, saying seditious statements will not be tolerated and had demanded her arrest on the same day. Jammu and Kashmir BJP president Ravinder Raina had told the reporters, “I request Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to take cognizance of the seditious remarks of Mehbooba Mufti, book her for the seditious act and put her behind bars”. Raina had further added, “We will sacrifice every drop of our blood for our flag, country and motherland. J-K is an integral part of our country, so only one flag can be hoisted in J-K and that is the national flag”. He had also said in the usual BJP way of attacking other parties, that if Kashmiri leaders are feeling insecure in India, they can go to Pakistan and China.

Referring to the Centre’s move to abrogate Article 370 on August 5 last year, Raina had said that no decision taken by the central government can be reversed. A person from Jaunpur in UP, Himanshu Srivastava had filed a case through an advocate named Upendra Vikram Singh, stating that Mufti should apologize for her statement on tricolour. The court has accepted his application and has fixed November 27 as the next date of hearing.

After the episode on the seditious remarks on the flag, Mehbooba Mufti recently stated that her party PDP wants J&K to be the bridge of peace between India, Pakistan and China.

The author is a student member of Amity Centre of Happiness.