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| Karra planning to quit PDP? | | |
Early Times Report
JAMMU, Oct 23: Is PDP's founder member and former Finance Minister Tariq Hameed Karra planning to quit the party?
The statements he has been issuing since June suggest that Karra, who is also a member of the Lok Sabha, may quit the party. There is also the possibility of PDP high command showing Karra the door on the ground that he has been indulging in anti-party activities and airing views in public against the coalition Government.
Karra has, till date, not attended a single meeting of PDP-BJP coordination committee. He has declared a number of times that he will not attend any of the meetings of the committee. He did not even attend an 'important' meeting of the PDP which was held in Srinagar on October 21 under the leadership of party patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and his daughter and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti. This was despite the fact that he was very much present in the Valley that day, and absence from the meeting was taken a serious note of.
Indeed, Karra is in a fighting mode. He has not once but at least thrice during the past five months urged Mufti to rethink on the alliance with the BJP, saying the association of the PDP with the RSS' political organ has been hurting Kashmiri Muslims and undermining the position and authority of the PDP itself.
It was for the first time on June 18 that sulking Karra urged his party leadership to "rethink its relation" with the BJP "if the Government of India continues with same prejudiced approach towards Kashmir".
"If the Government of India continues with same prejudiced approach towards Kashmir, PDP should rethink on its relation with the BJP as continuation in the coalition seems to be doing more damage to both Kashmiris and the party," Karra had said.
He had added that the "Agenda of Alliance has been just confined to the paper and right from the day one there has been no consonance between the functioning of the coalition Government."
"Be it return of power projects from NHPC, allocation of resources or distribution of institutions between the regions, there are so many contradictions within the coalition. The Centre's 'brazenly apathetic attitude' towards the flood-affected people of Kashmir and 'so-called' flood-relief package announced by the Government of India amounts to rubbing salt on to the wounds of Kashmiris. By playing this cruel joke, the Government of India has brought to fore its inherent bias towards Kashmiris, which has over the years aggravated the trust-deficit and alienation in the Valley," Karra had said.
On October 18, Karra went to the extent of asking CM Mufti to break alliance with the BJP over the beef ban issue. Asserting that the "coalition had proved to be harmful not only for PDP but also for the whole State," he called the PDP-led coalition "a failure" and claimed that "it has failed to deliver on the promises it made to the people".
"If we do an honest appraisal of this Government's performance in the last seven months, nothing seems to be happening on the ground on political, economic and developmental fronts. There seems to be more of rhetorical symbolism in this Government's functioning than any tangible deliverance on ground," he said.
He didn't stop just there. He said, "The BJP took the PDP for a ride and the rightwing RSS made inroads in Kashmir valley with the facilitation of the PDP. An 'inherent bias' against Kashmiris in the Indian bureaucracy was a reason behind the Centre's denial of a financial package to the flood victims of the Valley…I was not part of the arrangement either before the formation of the alliance or thereafter".
And on October 22, the day Mufti said that dissidence in the party will not be allowed and that Mehbooba is an undisputable leader of the party, who would replace him as Chief Minister anytime from now, Karra yet again urged the party leadership to revisit alliance with the BJP.
"What RSS could not achieve in last 60 years in J&K the party achieved in last six months. RSS is directly ruling and interfering in Kashmir affairs and the Muslims who are in majority are feeling insecure. If PDP did not part its ways with the RSS-sponsored BJP, then soon in every street and lane Dadri-like lynching incidents will take place in J&K," Karra reportedly said.
"The RSS-backed BJP members dared to beat a Kashmiri legislator (Engineer Rashid) in Legislative Assembly and if PDP continues to rule with the support of BJP in the State, the Muslims in J&K will be alienated and that will be disastrous for the PDP...The Government cannot suppress the voice of youth using such draconian and barbaric methods. Police brutality and handcuffing of youth is highly atrocious and undemocratic. The Government repression is forcing the youth to take extreme steps. The hand holding of the youth has actually been through handcuffing".
So much so, he questioned the Chief Minister for abandoning his 'healing touch' policy. "I wonder where that healing touch is," he asked.
Not only this. He charged the PDP-BJP coalition Government with unleashing a reign of senseless brutalities against the Kashmiri youth. "The youth of Kashmir have faced torture, abuse and humiliation during last more than five years of NC-Congress regime, and now the present (PDP-BJP) dispensation is surpassing all benchmarks of brutality," he said.
All this shows that Karra is not only in a belligerent mode, but he has crossed all the lines to discredit the PDP-led coalition Government by equating it with the previous NC-Congress coalition Government.
Political observers believe that "either Karra would leave the party himself anytime from now or he will be thrown out of the party by the Muftis as his continuation in the party has been embarrassing the high command at regular intervals". They say that "the October 22 statement of Mufti that he would not snap ties with the BJP is an indication of the direction things are moving towards as far as the political future of Karra is concerned". |
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