Ishtiyaq Ahmad
Early times Report
SRINAGAR, Jan 9: Following the death of her father, Mufti Mohmmad Sayeed, people have begun to question Mehbooba's ability to hold PDP together. Since Mufti Mohmmad Sayeed formed the PDP, his biggest success was to keep the party together. Unlike the National Conference, which has a long history dating back to 1938, the PDP is a 16-year-old party.
The Abdullahs have complete command on the National Conference and there is no one in the party who can match the stature of the Abdullahs.
However, the PDP is different. Many leaders in the PDP have a standing of their own, but they got completely subsumed under Sayeed. Mufti had a long stint in politics stretching over six decades. He was known as an astute politician, who made the PDP the single largest regional political party since its formation in 1999.
In about one-and-a-half decade, late Mufti Sayeed emerged as the biggest challenge to the National Conference which has got reduced to 15 members in the Assembly from 56 in 1996 when the PDP was not born.
Mehbooba, who has no previous record of running a Government or holding any Ministerial post, is seen as being temperamental. The decision to pull out of the Ghulam Nabi Azad-led Congress-PDP Government in 2008 when protests broke out in Kashmir against transfer of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board, is seen as her decision, which kept the party out of power for six years. Mehbooba has proven herself to be great rabble-rouser who can work on the streets. But it has to be seen when and if she replaces her father, Sayeed, whether she can retain the command and authority that Sayeed had on the party. |
