New political party to dot Kashmir horizon today

Arun Joshi

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Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 7

The stage is set for the launch of a new political party in Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday in a first in the past over two decades to build bridges between Srinagar and Delhi broken since the abrogation of Article 370 and the bifurcation of the state into two Union Territories (UTs) of Ladakh and J&K last year.

Former Finance Minister Altaf Bukhari, who was chosen as a leader of the PDP, National Conference and Congress to stake claim to form and head the government in November 2018, will head the new party, christened “Apni Party”.

It is for the first time since July 1999 – when the PDP was set up as an alternative to the then ruling National Conference (NC) – that a new political party with some of the star cast of the yesteryears is coming into being in a situation that J&K had neither foreseen nor experienced before its loss of statehood and special status in August last year.

The announcement of the new group that has many of its members from the PDP, Congress with a sprinkling of the NC, will be announced near the historic Lal Chowk – around which Kashmir’s history was scripted many a time in the last century – in Srinagar on Sunday.

“I am here to offer my shoulder to the distressed people to cry on,” Altaf Bukhari told The Tribune, underlining his objectives to do so when the start of the political process in Kashmir is viewed with both anticipation and apprehension. “All of us will make a concerted effort to wipe their tears.”

The idea to form the political group struck him when people started visiting him in dozens with a narration of unending woes, ranging from their inaccessibility to the administration to economic distress. “There was a complete helplessness, and I thought that it had consequences that we could not afford, as we are obligated to save and secure future of our children,” he remarked.

The launching of the political group is not just a political imperativeness in the given situation when leaders of known political parties like National Conference and People’s Democratic Party are under detention, but a moral obligation as well for Altaf and his colleagues. They feel that they cannot leave their people in lurch.

His colleague and also a former minister Ghulam Hasan Mir added: “At this point in time, there is a wide gap between people of the state and the Centre. The two, unfortunately, are viewed in hostile prism to each other. We want to bring down curtains on that.”

“Our task is to bridge the gap and convert the unfortunate misunderstanding into understanding for a better future of us all,” Mir explained.

Altaf and his colleagues are clear that the restoration of the statehood for the territory of J&K is the foremost task before them.

The new party, however, would remind the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah of their commitment to restore the statehood to J&K. “That is the promise, we would urge them to deliver,” Altaf said. He also disclosed that his party would seek an appointment and meet the Prime Minister to “register these demands that stem from the promises made by the Centre”.

“The demands are homegrown, but the Centre, too, has promises to deliver,” he observed in a tone of optimism on the eve of the launch of the party.