Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Apr 26: Accusing National Conference (NC) leaders of acting as collaborators of the Government of India in hurting J&K’s interests, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed today said that ever-since independence NC has performed the dubious role of collaborating with the Centre in bartering the State’s political and economic interests for power.
“While the voters of our state have little influence in determining who forms the Government at the Centre, what is more important is who represents them in the Parliament to be able to deal with the very serious issues facing J&K,” Sayeed said while addressing a series of election rallies in Budgam Assembly segment of Srinagar-Budgam Parliamentary constituency.
Sayeed said as NC leaders have nothing to show by way of performance or a vision for 21st century J&K, they have adopted a multilevel scare strategy to mislead the voters. “While the party’s Modi-PDP nexus rhetoric is their substitution for a manifesto, enforced boycott is their ground strategy for manipulating polls,” he said and added that PDP on the other hand transformed the political discourse in J&K by piloting successfully and with conviction the crucial issues concerning the State and its people.
He said PDP has not only put the Kashmir issue in a specific and rational political and economic context, but also laid strong foundations for its peaceful resolution in the emerging scenario of the regional and global political realities.
“The remarkable feature of the political transformation that transcended on J&K in the post-2002 era was that for the first time the State Government came on the forefront of the resolution process. The PDP-led Government, immediately after the 2002 elections, took the centre-stage and drove the peace process from the front,” he said and added that this political transformation accorded fresh credibility to the mainstream parties and public representatives in the State.
Ridiculing NC leaders’ comic utterances on PDP-BJP nexus, Sayeed said a diatribe doesn’t behove a party that discarded Prof Saif-ud-Din Soz for having voted against the then BJP Government in 1999.
Reiterating that PDP would continue to work hand-in-hand with the progressive and democratic forces in the country to facilitate dignified resolution of J&K’s problems, Sayeed asked PDP cadres to prepare for a significant role ahead as the winds of change have already set in across J&K.