‘He has the mandate to take state out of morass, hold talks with Pak’
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said Prime Minister Narendra Modi could take bold steps like resuming talks with Pakistan and was better for J&K than his predecessor Manmohan Singh who could not even visit his ancestral home there.
“If there is any leader who can talk to Pakistan it is him (Modi). Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister for 10 years. He had a wish to visit the other side (Pakistan) as he was born there and wanted to see his ancestral home. But he could not muster courage,” Mehbooba said in Anantnag district, where she kick-started Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) electoral campaign for the parliamentary bypolls today.
“If there is anyone with the mandate to heal the wounds of people of Jammu and Kashmir, take the state out of the morass, start a dialogue with Pakistan and make the atmosphere conducive, it is only Narendra Modiji and no one else,” Mehbooba said while addressing PDP workers in Anantnag.
The Chief Minister termed the PDP as a party with a set agenda to resolve the issues confronting the state. Mehbooba, who is also the president of the PDP, said the party was “pursuing its agenda ever since its inception with dedication and sincerity, power or opposition notwithstanding”.
She said her party had pursued the agenda with all seriousness despite temptations and limitations of time. She said the PDP provided the all-important alternative political narrative in the state which subsequently helped in bringing peace and persuading the Centre to take some bold state-specific confidence-building measures.
Mehbooba said whenever her party formed the government in the state, be it in 2002 or 2015, it did so after long-drawn discussions by chalking out common areas of governance, popularly known as the common minimum programme or the ‘Agenda of Alliance’.
“That’s why the results were evident at the end of our party’s rule in 2005. The Prevention of Terrorism Act was withdrawn, Task Force was disbanded and crackdowns were ended. More so, when late Mufti Sayeed raised the demand of opening the state to the outside world, it was positively responded with the opening of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalakote roads,” she said, adding that it had led to cooling down of tempers in the state and also resulted in a decade-long ceasefire on the borders.
The CM reminded the gathering that in 2015, her party had again taken a historically tough decision by allying with the BJP. “Mufti Saheb did it because he never shied away from speaking the truth and taking decisions which were in the interest of J&K,” she said.
The PDP president said she was hopeful that many more bold and big steps would follow to give the people of the state respite from bloodshed and uncertainty. She favoured the opening of many more cross-LoC routes.
“Let us open more routes and allow people more connectivity and interactions. Jammu and Kashmir is the gateway to South and Central Asia. Hazrat Shah-i-Hamdan came to Kashmir with all its culture and cuisine. Let’s explore that,” she said.
