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Decisive role ahead for PDP, says Mufti

Shujaat Bukhari

Mufti Mohammed Sayeed

SRINAGAR: Maintaining that the voters had given a substantive mandate to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to fulfil their aspirations, the former Chief Minister and party founder, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, on Friday said the success of the elections did not mean that the Kashmir problem had gone away.

In fact effective measures were needed to address the issue.

After chairing a meeting of the PDP’s new legislators, Mr. Sayeed told a news conference that “the people did not give a decisive but substantive mandate to us to represent their aspirations about resolution of the political problem in Kashmir … Emerging as a strong regional force, there is a decisive role ahead for the PDP in charting out a new destiny for the State and its people,” he said.

“The PDP has sketched a clear roadmap for the peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue in its self-rule document that has been substantively endorsed by people across the State,” he said. “History would remember the PDP for the momentous role it is going to play in defending the State’s distinct political identity.”

“It will be now the PDP’s mission to work towards the implementation of its J&K-centric agenda that clearly illustrates a way forward for the resolution of the Kashmir issue,” Mr. Sayeed said.

The emerging post-election reality is that the PDP is a rising political force extending rapidly its area of influence across the length and breadth of the State. “The PDP’s tryst with the destiny of Kashmir has been endorsed by the masses and it would be now our moral responsibility to voice the urges and aspirations of the people,” he said.

Mr. Sayeed said the people of the State had reposed their faith in peaceful and democratic means for the resolution of their problems and this momentous transformation had to be respected and responded to with substantive measures by New Delhi. “The country’s leadership must now respond to this new opportunity and rejuvenate the Kashmir resolution process with a fresh resolve,” he said. Any overt or covert effort to depoliticise Kashmir would have a dangerous fallout, he warned.

We are still part of UPA

Later talking to news reporters Mr. Sayeed said his party was still part of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and any decision to come out of it would be taken by the PDP’s working committee.

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