Mufti, while addressing the general council meeting of her People’s Democratic Party, also targeted the BJP led NDA government in New Delhi alleging that they are destroying the Constitution of India and ‘One Nation One Election’ move undermines this federal structure.
“I am amazed that the Chief Minister (Omar Abdullah) told the members of his party to stay quiet and not speak. I held the perception that when the govt will be formed, silence will be broken and people will be able to speak their hearts out,” said Mufti adding, “despite 50 MLAs and two Lok Sabha members, the NC government is unable to even speak on basic issues.”
The PDP chief said that she doesn’t expect the NC government to do anything about the Kashmir issue or Article 370, but they have directed their party to not speak about statehood.
“There is hardly any door in Delhi this government hasn’t knocked. This government goes to Delhi for small issues but nothing has changed in the last more than two months,” said Abdullah, adding, “We had expected that termination of employees would stop and they would at least talk about release of prisoners with Amit Shah.”
The PDP chief said that despite her party’s abysmal performance in the last assembly election winning just three seats, they are ready to face the challenges and represent people if the ruling party fails to fulfil its responsibilities.“PDP was formed to fight with the challenges and difficulties in 1999 when (NC) had around 60 seats and BJP was ruling in the centre,” said Mufti adding, “We are in the same situation today and we will continue to do the same and work at grassroots.”The PDP chief claimed that they implemented the party’s self rule agenda even without passing any resolution in the assembly.
“We released leaders like Syed Ali Geelani, Yasin Malik and Shabir Shah, started dialogue with Pakistan and Hurriyat and opened Muzaffarabad and Rawlakot roads when we had just 16 or 28 members in the assembly in 2002 and 2014,” said Mufti.
On the current One Nation One Election decision of the union cabinet, Mufti said, “India is a federal country. There is a federal structure here…They (BJP) talk of 2047 but instead of moving forward, they are going backwards…. They want to take us back to the same dictatorship, which I think is very wrong,” said Mufti.
