KL NEW NETWORK
SRINAGAR
National Conference Thursday, while taking strong notice of the statement by Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh about the Government’s refusal to consider the revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), said such remarks expose PDP’s “complete and total sell-out” to the BJP for the sole aim of coming to power in J&K. NC General Secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar while terming the Union Home Minister’s statement as unfortunate and “counter-productive” said both PDP and BJP had pledged to pave way for the revocation of AFSPA in their ‘Agenda of the Alliance’ – which was marketed as the Common Minimum Program (CMP) between the two parties.
According to a party statement Sagar also lamented the fact that the Union Home Minister had closed all doors to dialogue with the Separatist Leaders and said this was another successive U-turn enacted by the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed PDP-BJP Government. “Mufti Sahab tried to create many moral smokescreens ahead of formally forging PDP’s previously informal alliance with the BJP. One such moral smokescreen was PDP’s alleged ‘condition’ of getting AFSPA revoked – which is explicitly mentioned in their alleged ‘CMP’. It has now become evident that this was a lie that was propagated to fool the people into believing that this alliance had apparent ideological bearings. This alliance was cobbled up for the sole and singular aim of power and PDP’s sell-out has put the State’s interests – including the humanitarian demand for the revocation of AFSPA on the back-burner, which is extremely condemnable and unforgivable,” he said.
The NC General Secretary said that as rightly pointed out recently, it was Mufti Sayeed who imposed AFSPA in the State as the then Home Minister of India and his shrugging away from the promise of paving way for the revocation of AFSPA was a brazen deflection of moral responsibility.
“It is also highly unfortunate that the Union Home Minister has closed the doors to dialog with the Separatists as was promised to the people of this State in the Common Minimum Program between the two parties. The much touted ‘Battle of Ideas’ slogan has also now turned out to be a complete farce. What ‘Battle of Ideas’ is this where the doors to dialog have been shut and sealed – paving way for a status-quo and uncertainty? National Conference has always advocated that New Delhi should talk to the Separatists and we have always maintained that the Separatists should also engage in sustained talks with the Centre. This is perhaps for the first time in the past decade when the doors to dialog have been sealed shut in an arbitrary, brash manner as this. This clearly doesn’t auger well for peace and stability in the State,” Sagar further said.
The NC General Secretary said Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed’s conspicuous silence on repeated remarks by the Central Government and his ally BJP was an indication of his sell-out. “The Chief Minister has not spoken a word about AFSPA revocation or dialog with Separatists since coming to power in the face of repeated refusals from the Central Government and BJP within the State to agree on these issues”, the NC General Secretary said.
