Weighed down by Gupkar agenda & proposed delimitation, PDP, NC lose footing in Jammu

The latest leader to leave the NC is the party’s minority cell president MK Yogi, who resigned on April 8. He accused the party leadership of pursuing its agenda instead of strengthening the organisation.

“Having served the NC for the last 27 years, I painfully record my annoyance with its leadership for pursuing their personal agenda and not recognising the sincere work of ground workers,” Yogi added.

Last December, prominent Kashmiri Pandit leader Anil Dhar quit the party in protest against NC president Farooq Abdullah blaming former Governor Jagmohan for the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir. Dhar claimed that the former chief minister’s statement was an attempt to absolve Pakistan of its involvement in terrorism in Kashmir.

The National Conference had once made inroads even in predominantly Hindu-inhabited Jammu and Samba districts by winning Assembly constituencies such as Marh, Nagrota, and Vijaypur. But most of its key leaders in the region have moved over to the BJP in the past few months, including provincial president Devender Singh Rana; former ministers Surjit Singh Slathia, Prem Sagar Aziz, and Mushtaq Bukhari; former MLA Kamal Arora; provincial secretary Arshad Choudhary; Jammu district (Urban) president Dharamveer Singh Jamwal; Jammu district (rural-A) president Som Nath Khajuria; and members of urban and rural local bodies.

The PDP too has lost several key functionaries in the region. On April 5, its former Jammu face and prominent Jat leader Surinder Choudhary, who had quit the party last year, switched over to the BJP. Choudhary alleged the PDP had betrayed him and also accused party president Mehbooba Mufti of pursuing a “Pakistani agenda”. In contrast, her father and former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was a secular leader, the Jat leader added.

Earlier, former Rajya Sabha MP TS Bajwa, former legislator Ved Mahajan, and former state secretary Hussain A Waffa had quit the PDP in protest against Mufti’s remark that she would not hold the Tricolour till J&K got back its lost special status and a separate flag.

The three, who were the party’s founding members in Jammu, wrote in their two-page resignation letter in October 2020 that they felt “uncomfortable and suffocated’’ because of Mufti’s “undesirable utterances” that “hurt patriotic sentiments”.

A month later, the PDP’s founding leaders Dhaman Bhasin, Fallail Singh and Pritam Kotwal also quit the party over Mufti’s decision to become a part of the Gupkar Alliance along with the NC ahead of the first-ever District Development Council elections. They claimed that the PDP had become a “second fiddle” to the Abdullahs-led party.

A former bureaucrat and a political analyst held the two parties responsible for their current predicament in Jammu. They said the agenda of the Gupkar Alliance — which includes both the NC and the PDP, and was formed to fight for J&K’s lost special status — was Kashmir-centric and marginalised the two parties in an otherwise “peaceful and patriotic” Jammu division.

Apart from this, the proposed delimitation of the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats has also affected the NC. Its face in the Pir Panjal region and former minister Mushtaq Bukhari quit in February after the leadership objected to his meeting with BJP leaders over the issue of Scheduled Tribe status for the Pahari community in the region. Paharis have been seeking the ST status since it was granted to Gujjars and Bakarwals in 1991, leading to reservations in jobs and seats in educational institutions for them. After the Delimitation Commission recently recommended political reservation for Paharis as well, the community’s leaders have come together to make a fresh push on the issue.

The NC’s Jammu president and former MLA Rattan Lal Gupta told The Indian Express that the leaders who had deserted the party did it over vested interests. Their exits had benefitted the NC, he added, as people who were earlier unhappy with such leaders were now joining the party. He pointed out that after Bukhari’s resignation his cousin Dr Mumtaz joined the party.

Agreeing that instability since 2019 had weakened the party in Jammu, PDP spokesperson and former legislator Firdous Tak claimed that the Union Territory’s administration was utilising its energy and resources on experiments rather than strengthening and restoring democratic institutions.

A senior PDP leader said this was not the first time the party found itself in such a situation, pointing out that the BJP had tried its best to engineer desertions. With Mufti travelling across Jammu and Kashmir to apprise people of the party’s policies and programmes, the PDP would re-emerge stronger, the official added.

Where others stand

Some political observers pointed out that not only the two big parties, others such as the Congress and the Jammu Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) had also lost some leaders in recent months. On April 8, former JKNPP MLAs Balwant Mankotia and Yash Pal Kundal joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

A senior AAP leader said many senior functionaries from the Congress, the JKNPP and even the BJP had approached the party recently but added that the AAP had “refused to accept them”.

A senior Congress leader and former MLA, meanwhile, admitted that the party was directionless in the Union Territory in the absence of effective leadership. Only Ghulam Nabi Azad could rejuvenate the party in J&K, he said, adding that if the party high command did not decide on the matter soon Congress leaders and workers would make a beeline for the AAP.