SRINAGAR (ONS) – Asserting that his party would bag at least 4 seats in Srinagar in the next assembly elections, senior PDP leader and former deputy chief minister Muzaffar Hussain Beig on Thursday said that the NC would be wiped out in the district if Syed Ali Shah Geelani refrained from his boycott call in 2014.
At a public rally in the Naid Khai area of Sonawari in North Kashmir, Beig kept up a barrage of attacks on the NC, and said that the Congress dignity was being torn to shreds in the present coalition.
The NC leadership has always exploited the people of Jammu and Kashmir, for which Dr. Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and other party leaders are answerable before the masses, Beig said.
The NC sweeps the election in Srinagar purely because of the poll boycott call by separatists, as happened last time as well, he said.
In 2014, the PDP will win at least 4 seats in the district because the masses are fed up of the anti-people policies of the NC, he said.
The NC will be wiped out in Srinagar if Syed Ali Shah Geelani does not give his poll boycott call, he said.
When we formed the coalition government with the Congress in 2002, we made it clear to the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee that we would not play second-fiddle to anybody, he said.
The common minimum programme we framed the Congress had one point which was not in favour of the people of the state, and I was to only person to stand up against it and get it expunged from the agenda, he said.
It was the PDP that got Hurriyat leaders out of jail, ensured medical and other facilities for detainees, and facilitated the treatment of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, he said.
The Congress had a special place and dignity when it was in coalition with the PDP, but today when it is allied with the NC, its honour has been reduced to shreds, he said.
Beig recalled how during its tenure the PDP had nominated Congress leader Tara Chand as the assembly speaker, and Muhammad Akbar Lone of the opposition NC as his deputy.
But when we communicated this to the NC leadership, Dr. Farooq Abdullah did not know who Lone was. It was only when he contacted his son, Omar Abdullah, that he came to know the Lone was a noted constitutional expert, he said.
It is ironic that when people of other faiths visit the Hazratbal shrine without any problem, Syed Ali Shah Geelani is being prevented from attending Friday prayers even in his own locality, he said.
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