With voices of dissent growing within the state’s ruling Peoples Democratic Party, its arch-rival National Conference is going back to the basics, raising the demand for restoration of autonomy and terming it as a viable and credible solution to the political issue.
The opposition party adopted six resolutions at its high-level meeting of central working committee on Tuesday which will become its guiding principles for the coming years. The party’s demand for restoration of internal autonomy in one of Tuesday’s resolutions comes at a time when the PDP is struggling to make headway with its political roadmap of self-rule.
“We will continue to struggle for this goal (or restoring autonomy) in the future with vigour and sincerity of purpose,” the NC resolved at its meeting. All six resolutions of the NC focused on providing a counter-narrative against the ruling alliance of the PDP and the BJP. The two ruling parties, with competing political philosophies and agendas, are facing growing voices of dissent from within.
The PDP has come under intense pressure from its senior leaders, including parliamentarian Muzafar Hussain Baig, who said people “in the wake of our declared raison d’etre of alliance” were expecting greater understanding between different communities and regions of the state. “Instead the situation on this front is worse than ever before,” Baig said in an open letter.
The NC, sensing trouble within the ruling alliance, promised to uphold “the pluralistic and secular ethos of the state” and expressed alarm at incidents of intolerance.
“The vested interests of the Central government and the state government in dividing the people on the basis of region and religion threaten these long-affirmed values and ideals,” the NC said in one of its resolutions, sharpening its criticism of the ruling alliance.
The opposition party also demanded restoration of a “sustained and comprehensive dialogue between India and Pakistan” to address the “external dimension” of the Kashmir issue. This demand was also made by Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed but was rejected instantly by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally here last week.
Naseer Ahmad, a Srinagar-based political analyst, said the PDP had lost its political slogan and now the NC was trying to take that space. “The PDP believed in its own propaganda. The PDP had a belief or tried to make others believe that they will set the foreign policy from Srinagar and they failed,” he said. “The immediate benefits of the PDP’s failure go to the NC,” he said.
National Conference raises demand for autonomy
