Praise for Modi at PDP’s convention

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, November 13

After lying low during the long unrest, the state’s ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held a major convention outside the party headquarters in the heart of the city here on Sunday where its top leader praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “strong person” who had the support of Hindus and could resolve the Kashmir issue.

Party workers from Budgam, Ganderbal and Srinagar and senior leaders attended the convention. The convention was the first public show organised by the ruling party during the unrest.

Muzaffar Hussain Baig, the party’s senior leader and a parliamentarian from north Kashmir, said the convention was of “historic importance”. “Today, one person here is as important as one hundred,” he said. Around 4,000 party workers attended the convention amid dense security cover.

Baig in his speech at the convention praised the PMas a “strong person” and said he had the courage to solve the Kashmir issue. “If any Prime Minister can solve the Kashmir issue, it will be the one who has support of Hindus. Manmohan Singh could not have done it, any Muslim Prime Minister cannot do it. Modi can do it because Hindus are with him.”

Baig, who is among the founding members of the PDP, said: “We have this hope (that Modi will solve the Kashmir issue) and that is why we are in this government,” he said.

The PDP leader described the four months of unrest as the “most dark and oppressive time”, claiming it was a “conspiracy to dislodge” Mehbooba Mufti, the PDP president and the state’s Chief Minister.

“God is witness that it was a conspiracy against Mehbooba ji, it was a conspiracy to defame the PDP… they conspired (against her) to kill Burhan. May Allah absolve Burhan. They took a man’s life to dislodge Mehbooba ji,” Baig said, referring to the July 8 gunfight in which militant commander Burhan Wani and his two associates were killed.

Wani’s killing had sparked widespread and violent demonstrations across the Kashmir valley and had dented the PDP in its stronghold in south Kashmir, which had emerged as the epicentre of the unrest.

The PDP leader also criticised the opposition parties and without naming anyone he said that “instead of fighting the PDP politically, they pushed the youth towards fire”.

“If you have enmity against us, fight us, but don’t push youth towards fire … contest us politically, don’t conspire… don’t we know how much money you spent on this conspiracy,” he said in a veiled reference to opposition parties.

Baig also referred to an earlier speech made by PDP’s youth wing president Waheed-ur-Rehman, who had labelled the 80 youth killed during the unrest as “martyrs”.

“These youth died when it was not expected and they were innocent… a big conspiracy was made, time will come when we will put that conspiracy before you,” he said. He also advised the separatists, saying that the stone-throwing would not solve the Kashmir issue. He said the shutdowns called by the separatists since Burhan’s killing in July had become a “joke”.