National Conference Saturday said that it has become easy for the Mufti duo to talk about the corruption in the state but seeing their “bizarre past the party is filled with scamsters and people involved in graft.”
In a statement, party spokesman Junaid Azim Mattu said, “It doesn’t suit the PDP to talk about corruption or the transparency in the system, while the party has been preaching the same in their tenure filled with scams and frauds.”“Everyone in the state is aware about how much the corruption thrived in the J&K during Mufti’s rule and in fact it was the PDP that brought the Jammu and Kashmir on the first number of the most corrupt state in India, thus bringing a blot on the face of people living in the state,” Mattu said.
“Even recently one of the senior leaders of the party was convicted in a graft case. People of J&K have now come to know what good governance and corruption means for PDP and how the party’s senior-most leaders have emerged as culprits in graft cases,” he added. Mattu while underlining the steps taken by the Omar Abdullah led government in the last six years, alleged in the government of Late G M Sadiq, Mufti Sayeed was himself found involved in a graft case.“In late G M Sadiq’s government, Mufti Sayeed was a minister for cooperatives and the allegations against him were proved after which he had to step down from the chair. Following which the issue was brushed under the carpet and no action was taken against Mufti, otherwise he would have been jailed,” he said.
“We are certain that if probed properly and transparently, many more PDP leaders would be found involved in record-breaking scams of similar nature,” NC spokesman said. “Everyone in PDP from Tariq Hamid Karra to the party’s new faces in politics – be it former Food and Supplies Officer Khursheed Alam, former bureaucrat Asgar Ali who was found involved in the Panchayat Ghar Electrification Scam or Bashir Runiyal or Mehboob Iqbal who was involved in the Gulmarg Land Scam – PDP has offered nothing but the worst in this society as its faces in politics and has rubbed salt into the wounds of the people in general and the youth in particular.”
“Mufti Muhammad Sayeed has ensured that he makes all corruption specialists part of his specialized corruption team,” he alleged. “Tariq Hamid Karra swindled hundreds of kanals of custodian land in Shivpora Srinagar. Karra was also involved in bungling during his tenure as a minister in Mufti Sayeed’s Government. Same is the case with another PDP leader and candidate – Qazi Afzal – whose tenure as forest minister saw rampant loot and plunder of forests.”
“Asgar Ali from Kishtwar – then a bureaucrat – was found involved in the Panchayat Ghar Electrification Scam and was sacked for corruption by none other than Mufti Muhammad Sayeed himself as chief minister. However today the same Asgar Ali is a leader in PDP and was awarded with an MLC berth for corruption,” Mattu alleged. “Then again there is the case of PDP leader Mehboob Iqbal who was found involved in the Gulmarg Land scam during his service tenure. The party’s candidate from Khanyar Khursheed Alam is involved in numerous cases of graft and corruption in the Food and Supplies Department including a case of embezzling sacks meant for rice distribution,” he further alleged. “PDP is the epitome of corruption and the mandate given to the former corrupt bureaucrats and officials has exposed the nefarious designs of the party to plunder the state.”
He claimed from every nook and corner of the state PDP has fielded tainted candidates for the ongoing polls.
Mattu further said in the name of fight against corruption PDP introduced the so called Accountability Commission in 2002 “but kept the body headless for three years and in August 2005, made Justice R P Sethi as its chairman.”“Justice Sethi was supposed to tighten the noose against the tainted and the corrupt officials and the ministers but within the span of just nine months, he was pressurized so much that he submitted his resignation to the governor. In the resignation he had revealed the PDP leadership suffocated and pressurized him so much not to take action against any of their minister that he was compelled to tender his resignation,” the spokesman added.
Highlighting the steps taken by National Conference, Mattu said “The National Conference-led Government gave J&K one of the most stringent and strongest RTI Acts in the country to empower the common man with tools to eradicate corruption,” he said and added “We reconstituted the State Accountability Commission (SAC) and constituted the State Vigilance Commission (SVC) to wage a war against corruption in J&K after the previous PDP-Congress Government had plunged the State into the rot of corruption.”He said “Today we have succeeded in drastically reducing corruption in our State and have come a long way from the disrepute of J&K being the most corrupt State in the country during the PDP tenure.”