National Conference Sunday questioned Dr. Mehboob Beg’s assertions in light of the speeches he had made as early as a few months back against PDP and its leadership, especially Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.NC Provincial President Nasir Aslam Wani and Spokesman Junaid Azim Mattu addressed the press conference and brought to light various glaring contradictions in Dr. Mehboob Beg’s statements made today.Addressing the press conference, Wani said that Beg had approached the Chief Minister and NC Working President Omar Abdullah right after his loss in the Lok Sabha elections and had demanded political rehabilitation as a cabinet minister in the State. “Now where does the question of internal democracy and coterie system arise here Dr. Beg was looking for a cabinet minister portfolio for himself after remaining an MP for five years and earlier an MLA for another six years? National Conference does not need lectures on internal or external democracy as the party is based on the strongest ethics and values of democracy and this for example is evident in how the party gave mandates for the coming Assembly Elections based on a nomination system by our grassroots workers”, the NC Provincial President said.
Wani said that Dr. Mehboob Beg had said that Mufti was responsible for various massacres in Kashmir and was solely responsible for the killing of Nimazis who were killed while in prayer in Bijbehara. “Dr. Beg has also said on numerous occasions that PDP had ignored South Kashmir during their stint in power and that the performance of National Conference Parliamentarians was exemplary while that of Mehbooba Mufti as an MP was disastrous and unimpressive. So today when Dr. Beg wants to support Mufti Sayeed – one wonders what happened to Dr. Beg’s speeches and statements that are a matter of public and media record? Today the murderer of the innocent people of the Bijbehera massacre has overnight become someone Dr. Beg sees virtues in. Nothing could be more surprising”, the NC Provincial President said.
“One also wonders how Dr. Beg can say that NC didn’t do anything for the development of South Kashmir when he was a Member of Parliament from South Kashmir for five years and had earlier been an MLA from the region for six years? If Dr. Beg wants to blame NC for where he has failed in representing his constituents, that is his choice but nothing could be farther from the truth,” Nasir said.
The NC Provincial President also expressed amazement at Dr. Beg’s remarks that only PDP could stop the march of BJP in the State while referring the Dr. Beg’s statements in the Parliamentary elections campaign where Dr. Beg had said that PDP and BJP were in a tactical alliance and want to weaken the State’s secular fabric and ethos. “A few months back Dr. Beg saw PDP as a face of BJP in J&K and today Dr. Beg thinks that PDP will stop BJP. This is a self-evident contradiction that Dr. Beg is welcome to clarify if he can,” Nasir said.
The NC leaders said that party was a grassroots political institution that doesn't believe in opportunism and has witnessed numerous betrayals and intrigues in the past and has always emerged triumphant in the face of these ploys. “Dr. Beg had also left the party in 1984 and had worked against the very values that he had portrayed to espouse then. This is another repetition of that incident and while we had thought that Dr. Beg would this time around stick in the party for the long-term, Dr. Beg has chosen something else. There is absolutely no effect on the grassroots level in the party and National Conference is poised to make a breakthrough in various seats in South Kashmir where PDP sitting MLAs were facing an enormous, palpable anti-incumbency against them at the local level.