Mehbooba Mufti is out to kill two birds with one stone. During her campaigning for the prestigious South Kashmir parliamentary seat, she focuses more on Assembly polls due in October and insists voters to change the Government in Jammu & Kashmir after the change in guard at New Delhi next month. She appears to be confident.
“I will win this election. But I have come to tell you to bear this (Omar Abdullah-led) coalition Government for four more months and then throw it out in October,” says Mufti. The 55-year-old president of Opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is addressing a road-show in Noorabad, the lone Assembly segment that went out of her kitty in 2008 Assembly polls.
Unlike in the past, her main focus is not on resolution of Kashmir issue or soft-separatism but she talks of unemployment and lack of development. She attempts to whip the coalition Government whichever way she is able to. The once bastion of militants in South Kashmir, Noorabad, is one of the safest places now. There is no active local militant on the police records.
“This gatkaar (anarchy) is for four months only”, Mufti says while spelling out the performance of the coalition Government. “Do you get rationsIJ Did you get jobs promised by Omar AbdullahIJ” she begins her speech with a volley of questions to audience.
“Omar gave extension to 250 retired officers on monthly emoluments of Rs 1.5 lakh. Think how many poor youngsters could have been employed on this amount,” she asks and refers to one such officer Mushtaq Pir involved in infamous scandal of selling question papers for entrance examinations of professional courses.
She claims that her father’s three-year rule was the best in J&K’s history when human rights violations were stopped and Muzaffarabad and Mughal routes were reopened. “Omar gave us pallet guns. Do you know, there is resentment against use of pallet guns on dogs in Delhi but here humans are treated worse than dogs”, she says. Interestingly, Mehbooba doesn’t promise headway on Kashmir issue. She doesn’t refer to her party’s supposed links with the NDA.