PDP president Mehbooba Mufti Wednesday said Pakistan premier Imran Khan’s optimism that in its second term the Bharatiya Janata Party might resume talks and resolve Kashmir vindicated her father’s decision to align with the saffron party in 2014.
She made the remarks during her address to workers in Dak BangalowKhanabal in Anantnag town.
“My father Mufti Muhammad Sayeed sahib was of the opinionthat Narendra Modi has a two-fold mandate. He is a PM from right-wing BJP andhas a backing of all Hindutva forces—Jan Sangh, RSS, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena. Soif he talks with Pakistan no one will point a finger at him. But when Congressis in power they cannot afford to do as they are afraid of BJP and RSS whichmight raise hue and cry,” said the PDP chief.
She said Imran Khan today endorsed the same and “the visionof my father stands vindicated”.
“Why are you feeling embarrassed? Raise your heads high andtell the people that what Imran Khan is saying today has been said much earlierby Mufti Sayeed,” Mehbooba asked her party workers.
Mehbooba, however, was quick to add that Modi “lost theopportunity her father had provided him by joining hands with him”.
“He (Modi) did notfollow in the footsteps of his predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee and despite thehuge mandate lost a golden opportunity to settle the Kashmir issue and put anend to bloodshed once and for all,” she said.
“My father had no lust for the chair. He became CM in 2002 when our party had only 16 seats. He could have become CM on 20 seats too. But his dream was to find a way towards a resolution of Kashmir issue so to put end to bloodshed and to get treated the sword which is hanging over us on a daily basis that Article 370 and 35A would be abrogated.
For this, he had asked you to give him 40 seats at least but people of Kashmir did not understand that. They threw a fractured mandate and while we got 28 seats BJP got 25. What could have he done in those circumstances? Either he had to become CM or the leader who would resolve the Kashmir issue. So, he had no choice but to drink a cup of poison by allying with the saffron party,” said Mehbooba.
She said, “By doing so Mufti sahib captured the ghost in abottle. The very ghost which has now gone berserk and talks about abrogation ofArticle 370 and 35A, the one which hasclosed the highway for two days in a week. And the ghost who uses NIA tointimidate leaders like Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and locks up others in Tihar jail.”
He said that her father had set conditions before cobblingup the alliance with BJP.
“Holding dialogue with Pakistan and Hurriyat Conference, nottampering with the Article 370, gradual withdrawal of AFSPA, reducingfootprints of security forces and the return of power projects were among thoseconditions,” said Mehbooba.
She said that Mufti “tried to cure the disease of youthcarrying stones in hands, wielding guns and struggling with unemployment”.
Mehbooba warned that if Article 370 and 35A are abrogated,J&Ks relation with India will break and the entire subcontinent will erupt.
“This place is not a merely the state of J&K but it isthe pious land of sufi saints, peers and awlias and if you try to touch theseArticles, the curse you will get from here will burn the entire subcontinent,”she said while repeating a couplet she had uttered a few days ago: ‘Na samjogey tau mit jao gey Hindustan walo, tumhari dastaan na rahey gi dastanomein’.
This was her maiden election rally here in the run up to theLok Sabha elections. She is contesting from Anantnag.
Amid ban on civilian traffic on the Srinagar-Jammu nationalhighway, Mehbooba drove from Srinagar and reached Khanabal area of Anantnagwhere she addressed the party workers.
Urging them to come out and vote for her in large numbers,Mehbboba said, “I used to win by a margin of fifty or sixty thousand votes fromsouthern Kashmir. Today the margin should be one lakh and I should get leadfrom all 16 assembly segments.”
Mehbooba said she defied the traffic ban on the highway toreach Anantnag and asked the people to do the same.
“The ban on the national highway is another attempt tosubjugate the people of J&K and their economy and rights and we shouldfight it tooth and nail and resist by defying the curbs,” she said.