By News Agency of Kashmir
Jammu : Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the National Conference (NC) of utilizing the party’s established dubious means of character-assassination of its rivals through propaganda to score political points. “The present premeditated campaign against the two PDP ministers is a part of the NC’s same age-old tactics for the sake of its own survival,” a PDP spokesman said.
In a statement issued here today, the PDP spokesman said the continued disruption of the State Legislature by the NC members depicts the frustration that has engulfed the rank and file of the party after having miserably failed to play the role of a responsible opposition. “The once strongest political party of the State had, in the last election been given the mandate to sit in the opposition, but considering its undemocratic and irresponsible behavior, it might, in the coming elections, even lose that mandate as well,” he said.
The PDP spokesman said the NC has been ruthlessly using character-assassination of its rivals as part of its political tactics and has even combined it with muscle power to silence those who questioned its repeated subversion of the interests and rights of the people of the State. “Every page of the Kashmir history is in fact full of the incidents of this party hitting one or the other prominent political figure below the belt, with no less a venerable family than the Mirwaiz of Kashmir being the first victims of NC’s canard and innuendo,” he said and added that along the way a whole host of leaders, including those who at one point of time were the stalwarts of the party, including Mirza Mohammad Afzal Beigh and Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad were no exception. Ironically, he said, NC even inspired the boycott of Nimaz-e-Jinaza of many of its former members.
Referring to the targeting of Qazi Mohammad Afzal and Tariq Hameed Karra by the NC, the spokesman said the party was finding it difficult to find a safe constituency for two of its chief ministerial aspirants – Dr Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah – after being dislodged from Ganderbal and feeling the heat in Srinagar. “While in democracies, no arrangement is permanent, the NC leadership should have worked these six years among the people to revive the party’s political fortunes,” the spokesman said and added that surprisingly since their last defeat in Ganderbal neither Dr Abdullah nor his son Omar Abdullah paid a single visit to there, except perhaps for seeking votes in Lok Sabha elections.
The spokesman said while NC’s democratic credentials were always suspect, it was painful to see its front-running leaders getting on the top of the desks in the Legislature and sometimes even trying to go physical out of frustration. “The leader of the opposition is perhaps sensing his own chances by engineering a virtual coup in the party to dump Abdullah’s for good,” he said and added that instead of allowing the Kundal Committee Report to be discussed on its merits, the leader of the opposition was playing his own political game to realize his long-cherished dream.
Making it clear that the party stands by Karra and Qazi, the PDP spokesman said the party would not succumb to the NC’s blackmailing tactics as there is nothing in the Report against them and as has been pointed out in the Report, they have not resorted to any corruption, nepotism or favoritism and followed a proper policy and procedure in their functioning.