Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti warned the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government against trying to tear her Peoples Democratic Party apart, ANI reported. Mufti said the consequences of such an interference and a breach of voting rights would be bad.
The BJP walked out of a three-year alliance with the Peoples Democratic Party on June 19, leading to the fall of the state government. Over the next few weeks, rebellion brewed in the regional party as a number of legislators spoke out against senior party leadership, accusing it of nepotism and dynastic politics.
The state is currently under governor’s rule.
Mufti said any attempts by New Delhi to divide her party would lead to increased restiveness in the Valley and the rise of separatists like Salahuddin and Yasin Malik in 1987. “If Delhi, tries to dismiss the voting rights of people like 1987, if it tries to create divisions and interfere, the outcomes will be dangerous,” Mufti told reporters in Srinagar.
Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah took to Twitter to counter her statement. “Not one new militant will be created with the break up of the People’s Democratic Party,” Abdullah tweeted. “People will not mourn the demise of a party created in Delhi only to divide the votes of Kashmiris.”
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