Srinagar: Senior Congress leader Makhan Lal Fotedar Wednesday began his weeklong mission Kashmir. The 80-year-old Congressman, who is widely seen as Congress party’s ‘backroom handler’, will not just meet the local Congress leaders but has an array of tasks up his sleeve.
The visit comes close on the heels of dwindling electoral fortunes of both National Conference and Congress, with both playing blame game. Congress has just lived through Omar’s tenure, at times the ministers publicly admitting that the alliance with Omar Abdullah cost them dearer.
“Even Congress voters defied the party call and voted for PDP during the recent parliament poll. This is a wake up call for Gandhis. Fotedar might be here to see the possibilities of a pre-poll alliance with PDP, of course with the covert blessings from any separatist quarter he manages to seduce,” said a Kashmir watcher who did not wish to be named.
The visit has sparked a whole host of political insinuations across the political divide here, given Fotedar’s affinity with Mufti Muhammad Syed. During his last year’s visit to Kashmir, Fotedar said that Mufti’s rule can be termed as the golden era in the history of Kashmir.
“Mufti Mohammad Syed ruled the state in an efficient manner. Had he been the Chief Minister of the state, Kashmir issue would have been solved,” he had said.
Born, brought up and educated in Kashmir, Fotedar is a longtime loyalist of Gandhi family. Many here believe he was the person who had handpicked Mufti Syed to cultivate an “alternative to Sheikh Abdullah”. Fotedar says, Maharaja was willing to join hands with India in 1947 but New Delhi asked for a peoples representative, so, Sheikh (Abdullah) was used as a face.
His presence and political muddling in Kashmir often drives National Conference crazy. Some historians suggest that Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah’s most recalled comment about congress, Gandi naali ke keeday”cockroaches of the gutter” was due to the intrigues Fotedar allegedly worked out to “weaken” National Conference. Small wonder that he was past year declared by Abdullahs as a “snake in the sleeve”.
Amidst such hostility within a party with which Fotedar’s Congress shares power in J&K, the weeklong mission is least expected to serve the cause of the coalition.
“Azad has lost his seat and Rahul his stature. Also Soz is lucky not to have contested. This gives Soz enough leeway to root for an alliance with PDP because Azad and Rahul were the only hurdles. If at all that happens, the marriage will happen on PDP’s terms. They will certainly want an agreement regarding a full-term PDP CM,” a low-rung Congress leader said.
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