Nirupama Kaul alias Rabia Baji, who runs a nongovernmental group in Kashmir, Thursday announced that she will contest the election from Srinagar slated in the months of April and May.Begam Abdullah, chief minister’s Omar Abdullah’s grandmother, had successfully contested the parliamentary elections from Srinagar in 1984.Rabia, who was in the news after 65 Kashmir students were expelled from a university in India’s Meerut, during a press conference at her Raj Bagh office said: I will contest the election as an independent candidate.Rabia, who runs the All India Centre for Urban and Rural Development (AICURD, J&K), will be the first woman from the state to fight the parliamentary elections after nearly two decades. Rabia, said ‘she will not contest as a leader’, but, ‘as a representative of a common Kashmir people whose voice are unheard in the Indian Parliament’.She is set to announce her manifesto within coming days ‘after proper consultation with various cross sections of society’. “I am not contesting against anyone but am contesting for the voice of youth and suppressed women who do not get their choice of representation and relief for their suffering and needs,” she said.
Rabia said youth are the pillar and the backbone of the society. “If the youth is strong, the society is strong, same for the women, who are the foundation stone of a family. If women are economically, socially and physically strong, then the society also becomes strong,” she said.The students expelled from the SVSU University were sent to study there on Prime Minister’s scholarship scheme through Rabia’s group.While commenting on the sedition charges leveled on Kashmir students, she said their suspension order has not been revoked. “I had called a meeting of the parents of suspended students. Some of them are concerned for the safety of their wards and want a migration from the varsity and some want to rejoin their studies at the university,” she said.Rabia said those who are issuing statements in connection with the ousting of these students should answer why they turned their heads when asked to assist the students in 2010. “Now, they are issuing statements regarding the issue as part of their election gimmick,” she said.She will be contesting against National Conference (NC) patron and union minister Dr Farooq Abdullah – who is currently Member of Parliament from Srinagar Constituency. Traditionally, Srinagar is NC’s stronghold, and it had swept Assembly elections as well in 2008.The others who are contesting parliament elections this year are Tariq Hamid Qarra of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Aam Aadmi Party’s Raja Muzaffar Bhat, a former PDP worker who had joined the opposition after working as an RTI campaigner.