Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, May 13: The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti today said Karnataka Assembly poll results are a “ray of hope” and hoped that the rest of the country will also reject “communal politics” and vote for its development and prosperity.
Mehbooba told reporters here that while the democratic values of the country and the idea of brotherhood were being attacked, “a ray of hope is being seen from Karnataka today”.
“I hope people across the country will also reject communal politics and vote for the country’s development and prosperity,” she said.
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She said the people of Karnataka have sent a good message that they do not want to get into the Hindu-Muslim debate and vote in the name of gods, but over issues of unemployment, price rise and other developmental concerns.
Mehbooba said that the BJP tried its best to communalise the situation as is their habit. “They even brought Bajrangbali, religion, Hindu-Muslim to the discourse. The Prime Minister tried to take the discourse on religious lines. Despite that, people kept these issues on the sidelines and chose the issue of development on which the Congress ran its campaign,” she said.
She said be it Rahul or Priyanka Gandhi or other Congress leaders, they built a narrative around development, employment and welfare schemes, and people voted for that. “It is good news because the general elections are to take place the next year,” she added.
Mehbooba on recent developments in Pakistan said the situation in the neighbouring country is very bad.
“But it is Pakistan’s fortune that institutions there like the judiciary or the media are playing their role well and making the Government answerable…. The courts are trying to maintain the roles of the institutions. I think the situation there is a matter of concern for India…. But if anything can take Pakistan out of this morass, it is these institutions,” she said.
On the preparations for the G20 event scheduled to take place in the Kashmir valley later this month, the PDP chief said people are being put to inconvenience in the name of the preparations.
“The preparations are on across the country, which is a good thing. But the oppression happening in Jammu and Kashmir, especially in the Valley, in the name of G20 – arrests, crackdowns, searches, frisking … the roads in Srinagar were dug just to show that development is taking place – this has caused agony to people,” she said.
“The locals here are put to inconvenience just to welcome people from outside. I think the aim of G20 is to sell Kashmir, which they think is a trophy they got after 2019 and want to showcase that everything is alright, but nothing is alright here,” she said.
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