PDP alliance with BJP was like drinking a cup of poison': Mehbooba Mufti
Srinagar: Speaking at her first public meeting since losing the chief ministerial status last month, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) supremo Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said she had reservations about joining hands with the BJP right from the beginning but her worries were overruled by her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. He had argues that the coalition was not meant to build infrastructure in the state but to rather end the sufferings of the Kashmiris.
Mehbooba Mufti became Jammu and Kashmir’s first woman chief minister in March 2016 with the death of her father and continued to helm the state until recently when the BJP pulled the plug on their alliance.
The alliance, it turned out caused PDP a lot of political harm in Kashmir, particularly after she had to give much space to her alliance partner that was already pushing ahead strongly. This was not taken kindly by many Kashmiris.
Mehbooba Mufti's speech at the foundation day of the party her father founded was aimed at recouping some of the lost political ground.
The "unholy alliance", as the Congress described the 2015 pact between the rivals went on to create a political vacuum in Kashmir.
Speaking about the alliance Mehbooba Mufti finally revealed it was akin to consuming poison.
"It was like drinking a cup of poison," she said about the BJP-PDP alliance, but for all the extreme hardship that the PDP leader says she went through, Mufti made it a point to underline that it had done Kashmir some good.
The ex-chief minister of the state took credit for the Centre not dabbling with Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, the Ramzan ceasefire etc.
Mehbooba Mufti also spoke about her conversations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi about improving relations with Pakistan and how, the economic packages that the centre announces for Kashmir, could not address a political problem.
She said, “I told PM Modi that even if we make roads of gold, just one killing brings the situation back to square one.”
Welcoming overtures by Imran Khan after his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) emerged as the single largest party in Pakistan, Mehbooba Mufti appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reciprocate and bring “two countries together.”
