The People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration – a group of mainstream political parties – which have vowed to fight for restoration of J&K’s special status gave a formal structure to the group on Saturday, electing National Conference President Farooq Abdullah as the President.
While Peoples Democratic Party chief, Mehbooba Mufti is the Alliance Vice President, Peoples Conference Chairman, SaJad Lone is its spokesperson. The CPI-M leader MY Taragami has been elected as Convener while National Conference leader Hasnain Masoodi is the Alliance Coordinator.
The Alliance has decided to prepare a “research-based white-paper” for creating awareness about fallout of the abrogation of Article 370. “It (document) will be completed in next one month. Every misunderstandings and lie will be countered with this document. We will present statistics to bust the fake stories of how J&K was in dark ages and corruption before August 5 last year,” Lone said.
He said once prepared, the document will be presented to the entire country to create awareness on fallout of the abrogation of Article 370. He said the next meeting of the alliance will be held in Jammu after which a convention will be organized in Srinagar on November 17.
The Alliance has adopted the erstwhile J&K state flag as Gupkar Alliance symbol, Lone said. “We thought by adopting this flag as a symbol we can give the best possible tribute,” Lone said.
Apart from Lone, others who would be preparing the white paper include National Conference leader Devinder Singh Rana, Awami National Conference senior Vice President Muzaffar Shah and Tarigami.
On October 15, the group of mainstream parties held their first meeting after over one year and forged the Alliance to fight for restoration of Article 370. The meeting had taken place just two days after the release of Mehbooba from almost 14-month long detention.
The “Gupkar Declaration” was a unanimous resolution passed by the parties at the residence of Abdullah on August 4, 2019 to oppose any move by the Centre to abrogate J&K’s special status. The meeting had taken place day before the Parliament abrogated Article 370 and bifurcated the state into two Union territories.
The parties had warned the Centre that abrogation of J&K’s special status and even modification of Articles 35A and 370 or delimitation or trifurcation of the state would be seen as an “aggression” against people of J&K and it would be fought tooth and nail.