‘Admn uses force to make DDC candidates of PAGD to join AP’
Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Dec 26: National Conference vice-president and the former Chief Minister of J&K, Omar Abdullah, today accused the administration led by LG Manoj Sinha of using police to force the winning candidates of Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) to join the Apni Party.
Addressing a press conference here, the NC leader said that on one hand Prime Minister Narendra Modi and J&K LG Manoj Sinha boasts on DDC polls and claim democracy has won, but on the other hand, democracy is being discredited.
He played a call recording to show how the husband of a woman candidate from Shopian who had won was allegedly forced to make his wife join Apni Party forcibly in lieu of getting her brother in law released from detention. “I don’t know the reasons on whose command this all is being done,” he said. “Winning candidates of PAGD are being threatened, humiliated and coerced to join Apni Party, which is a B-team of BJP”, he accused.
The NC vice-president said that if BJP leaders including its spokesman are beating the drums that democracy has won in J&K through DDC polls, why “same democracy is being discredited by the administration which is using police to force the winning candidates to switch sides to Apni Party.”
He said that perhaps this all is being done to change the verdict of DDC elections. “The process has been started from Shopian where NC’s former MLC Showkat Ganai and senior NC leader Shabir Ahmed Kullay have been kept under detention for no reason,” he said, alleging that “perhaps the price of setting these leaders free is to join the Apni Party.”
“Shabir was not arrested after 5 August, what was the need of arresting him now? We have come to know that those who have won there, are being taken from there to Srinagar and are being made to join the Apni Party”, he said.
“There are Independents, candidates from Congress, PDP and those who contested on the NC ticket are also being made to do this forcibly. I am stating this with authority. It is clear that the administration is resorting to such things. The condition for the release of these candidates is to join the Apni Party”, he alleged.
“This way democracy is being murdered in J&K. I am telling the Govt and Delhi to stop playing with the democracy. I wonder if Parliament has anti-defection law, and the Assembly too has it, why the same is not being implemented in J&K and those switching sides being disqualified”, he said.
Omar said that Government should respect democracy in Kashmir. “I don’t fear whether we will form one district or 10 districts; the results are in front of people, I fear that democracy and institutions are being discredited. At the end of the day, if this is the victory of democracy then democracy must be allowed to speak. What has been started in Shopian, who knows where else this will be”, he said.
“If BJP is stating that the people have for the first time participated in the election in huge numbers, then they are wrong. There have been many such elections in which people have participated”, Omar said.
He said the verdict of DDC polls was loud and clear that people voted for PAGD and the message is “August 5, 2019 decision wasn’t acceptable to majority of people of J&K. I don’t claim 100 percent people are with us but yes, majority have voted against August 5, 2019 decision. We will continue to fight for what we stand for.”
The NC leader said that former legislator Er Rashid should have been released and court should have been allowed to decide. “The general rule has been bail, not jail; now he (Er Rasheed) is behind bars for long now, the questioning must have culminated by now; he should be able to get bail from the court now. The law presumes you innocent until you are proven guilty. If you have got enough evidence against Er Rasheed, or any person, then the case should be fought in the court and the court will decide whether he is guilty or not”, he said.
He said that initially Congress was signatory to PAGD but they wanted seat sharing which was not acceptable. “We had considered Congress as a part of PAGD because it was among the original signatories on August 4 2019. Subsequent to that, as the seat-sharing negotiation started, there was a press statement issued from Delhi in which they distanced themselves from the alliance, they wanted only seat-sharing arrangement which was not acceptable to us”, he said.
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