Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti has said that the NC rightly feels insecure by the emergence of her party as the first viable alternative to it after decades of a free run on the political scene of the state.Addressing a large no, of workers here today who joined the party she said even though NC had tried all methods, fair and fowl, to prevent any opposition to it had failed in curbing the forces of history. The workers who joined today are followers of Ab Majid Padder who resigned as vice president of state congress and joined PDP “after his disillusionment with the functioning of the coalition government”. Padder hails from Noorabad constituency in Kulgam district and is one of the senior most politicians of the area. On this occasion a noted physician from Manzgam Noorabad Dr Mohd Ayoub who gave up his medical career in Saudi Arabia also joined the party.Welcoming Mr Padder, Dr Ayoub and the large number of political workers into party fold Mehbooba said PDP is attracting people from other parties only on the strength of its agenda, its performance in government and in opposition and the vision and sincerity of its leadership.
She said NC had first felt threatened by the emergence of congress as viable alternative under the leadership of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed way back in mid eighties. Instead of putting his party house in order Dr Farooq Abdullah adopted the line of least resistance and struck on disastrous deal with the congress to scuttle local opposition. By doing so she said Farooq Abdullah squeezed the space for opposition which is an essential requirement for a genuine democracy. She said this suicidal and unprincipled tie up led to disenchantment with both the parties congress as well as NC. “when people wanted an alternative in the shape of MUF against them the Farooq Abdullah led government resorted to unabashed rigging to return to power”, she said.Mehbooba said the rigging in 1987 elections by NC- Congress regime threw the state into the worst phase of its history which resulted in expansion of graveyards and destruction of normal life and peace of ordinary people.She said though things had started to improve under the PDP- Congress coalition but, when history repeated itself in the shape of another NC-Congress government under Omar Abdullah the state faced another phase of destruction, death, corruption and inefficient governance.
Referring to the recent statements from Chief Minister and other members of the ruling family Mehbooba said though they are claiming that they would seek a return to the original terms of accession on three subjects the NC is only interested in one subject and that is power for the ruling family. “Whenever they see any threat to power the NC leadership racks up the issues of pelbicite , accession and autonomy after having it self being responsible for compromises on each issue”.Mehbooba said in order to secure its position in power NC deliberately tries to push people of Kashmir out of democratic system. They will prefer the people especially the youth to join any party except the one like PDP which could fight them in elections and end their monopoly, she said and added that the NC should however know that its assessment of the political behavior of people and its tactics are now out dated.On this occasion senior party leader and former finance Minister Tariq Hameed Karra, MLA Sofi Ab Gaffar, Chief Spokesman Naeem Akhtar, district president Nazir Ah laway, Manzoor Ah Zargar and others were also present.