Hussain, Basharat join NC

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 19

Two senior leaders of the PDP Basharat Bukhari and Peer Mohammad Hussain, who were expelled from the party yesterday, joined the National Conference today, strengthening its electoral base in south as well as north Kashmir.

Bukhari, a two-time legislator from north Kashmir’s Sangrama Assembly constituency, and Peer Mohammad Hussain, a founding member of the PDP and a minister during the PDP’s first time in power between 2003 and 2005, joined the NC and were welcomed by senior party leaders, including president Farooq Abdullah and vice-president Omar Abdullah.

The entry of Bukhari and Hussain into the NC is a major boost for it ahead of the Assembly and parliamentary elections, likely to be held next year, and a significant setback to the PDP, which has already lost several influential members to the Sajad Lone-led People’s Conference.

Bukhari and Hussain’s inclusion into the NC is likely to expand the electoral base of the party in north Kashmir, where Bukhari has represented the Sangrama constituency twice, and in south Kashmir, where Hussain was elected as a legislator of Shangus in 2002 and had also contested but lost the parliamentary election by a thin margin in 2009.

The NC president and senior Abdullah welcomed the two former PDP leaders and described them as “good people”. “I congratulate them and hope they will work honestly for the betterment of people,” he said while presenting them bouquets.

The two former PDP leaders formally joined the NC at Abdullahs’ highly guarded residence on the Gupkar Road here, where a large gathering of party leaders, including general secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar and provincial president Nasir Aslam Wani were present.

“People have to be taken out of the turmoil in which they are trapped and for that we need good people and it is God’s mercy that good people are joining this party,” Farooq said.

With the exit of Bukhari and Hussain, the PDP is now significantly reduced in strength as five other former legislators and councillors have left the party since it lost power after the BJP withdrew support to the ruling coalition earlier this year.

Among those who have quit the PDP is influential Shia cleric Imran Ansari, who joined the Sajad Lone-led People’s Conference, and former Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu, who has disengaged himself from the party affairs.