Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti on Sunday blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party for disowning its initiatives in Jammu and Kashmir by pulling out of the coalition government in the state.
BJP President Amit Shah on Saturday claimed that the party had walked out of the alliance because the PDP had ignored the interests of Jammu and Ladakh.
Mufti said Shah’s allegations had no basis in reality. “Yes, the Valley has been in turmoil for a long time [and] the floods of 2014 were a setback, therefore needed focused attention,” she said in a series of tweets on Sunday. “But that does not mean that there was any less development elsewhere.”
She claimed that such concerns were not discussed in the last three years either at the state level or at the Centre. “If anything they should review the performance of their own ministers, who largely represented the Jammu region,” Mufti said.
The former chief minister accused the BJP of levelling false accusations. “Our commitment to the Agenda of Alliance, co-authored by Ram Madhav [and] endorsed by senior leaders like Rajnath Ji [Rajnath Singh] never wavered,” she said. “It is sad to see them disown their own initiative [and] label it a ‘soft approach’.”
Mufti said the BJP leaders had cited the assassination of Rising Kashmir editor Shujaat Bukhari in Srinagar on June 14 as one of the reasons for breaking the alliance, but had failed to act against their MLA Choudhary Lal Singh for threatening journalists.
“After expressing concern about freedom of expression in [Jammu and Kashmir] following Shujaat’s murder, their MLA, notorious [and] even punished for his role in the aftermath of the unfortunate Kathua case still threatens journalists belonging to the Valley, so what are they going to do about him?” she asked.
Singh, a former state cabinet minister, on Friday expressed his disapproval of the reportage of the Kathua case and warned journalists to “mend their ways”. He was asked to resign in April after he participated in a rally in support of one of the men accused of murdering an eight-year-old girl after allegedly raping her.
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