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CM Ms Mehbooba Mufti
CM Ms Mehbooba Mufti

Defending her party’s decision to join hands with the BJP, Chief Minister Ms Mehbooba Mufti said the state would have been “torn apart” had not alliance between PDP and BJP been stitched.

“I am not retracting my statements against the BJP during election campaign because the revocation of Article 370 was in their poll manifesto,” Ms Mufti said. “But the mandate given by Jammu to BJP put us in a tricky situation. Either we had to disrespect the mandate and repeat the situation of 1987 for our own interests, or we could join hands with them for strengthening our relations. We chose the latter.”

Ms Mufti said if the PDP had joined hands with other political parties like National Conference and Congress, and kept the BJP out of the government, the situation in the state “could have turned ugly”.

“Our state, God forbid, would have been torn apart,” she said. “We could not have stayed together, had we disrespected the Jammu’s mandate. Syed Ali Geelani and Abdul Gani Lone were part of this house but they chose a different path because of the attempts made to disrespect the mandate of people.”

“We have to carve out a middle path. When Kashmir was burning and Dr Farooq Abdullah was promised ‘Sky is the Limit’ in 1996; he shook hands with the Union Government for improving the political and economic landscape of J&K. We have similar concerns and the opposition must share our concerns,” she said.

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