In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the President of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mehbooba Mufti, has reiterated her call to the BJP government for dialogue with Pakistan and the peo-ple of the territory, saying that peace would be elu-sive as long as Kashmir dispute remained unresolved.
Mehbooba Mufti Addressing a workers conven-tion in Ramban on the last day of her week-long tour of Jammu, called upon the people to vote for the constituents of the People’s Alliance for Gukpar Declaration (PAGD), an alliance of several parties, in the next assembly elections.
Kashmir has been awaiting a solution for the last 70 years there will be no peace in the region until the Kashmir issue is resolved, and for that, dialogue with Pakistan and the people of Jammu and Kashmir is imperative, the former chief minister said.
The Peoples Democratic Party chief sought to know, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee both visited Pakistan, but why do they (BJP) feel perturbed when we speak about it (holding dialogue with the neighbouring country).
Mehbooba said that the present government was only speaking the language of oppression by sending the youth to jails in and outside the union territory.
Calling out the BJP over its claims that the party had set everything right after the abrogation of Article 370, she said, If their claim is true, what is the need to deploy 10 lakh soldiers in Kashmir?
Asking the people to vote for the PAGD irre-spective of whether the parties form a coalition or go solo in order to keep the saffron party out of power, she said, The BJP wants to grab the power and put a stamp on its wrong, unconstitutional and illegal decision of August 5, 2019. We have to demonstrate maturity and use our votes to defeat their designs.
To a question on the movie “The Kashmir Files”, based on the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990s, the PDP president said the BJP is promoting it with the intention of polarizing people. Instead, an effort by the BJP to rehabilitate the Pandits in the last eight years would have been better, she quipped.—KMS
