Sidepiece To Centre-stage

All eyes are on Dr Farooq Abdullah, again, but there바카라�s more to it than meets the eye. The National Conference president who is riding out the coronavirus pandemic and Kashmiri scepticism over the former state바카라�s downgraded status is trying to reassure the people, according to a party leader, that 바카라�there is no political vacuum in J&K바카라�. The 83-year-old former CM and Union minister attracted more than an eyeroll when he convened an unscheduled meeting of the People바카라�s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) on June 9, the first in six months. It was watched keenly by the Delhi-appointed administration in J&K as well the people.  

The Gupkar Declaration broadly agrees to challenge the abrogation of Article 370바카라�the constitutional safeguard bestowed on J&K when it joined the Indian Union after Independence from British rule바카라�and demotion of the state to a Union territory under direct administrative control of the Union government in Delhi. Signatories of the pact demand restoration of Article 370 and statehood바카라�both emotive ­issues in a highly charged region that has weathered three decades of separatist insurgency. There have also been subtle manoeuvres to undercut the ­established political leadership바카라�such as the NC바카라�s Abdullahs, Farooq and son Omar, and Mehbooba Mufti of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who was CM with support of the BJP before the watershed on August 5, 2019, when J&K ceased to be a state and Article 370 was removed. A new political outfit, the Apni Party, sprang up from this flux in October 2019 and Delhi has ­accommodated its president, ­businessman-politician Altaf Bukhari, and its leaders in talks at the highest level, including one with the prime minister on January 24 this year.

But Apni Party doesn바카라�t command the support that dyed-in-the-wool political parties do and it became evident when it lost poorly in the district council ­elections in October-December last year. And so, Delhi seems to have turned its eyes on the NC patriarch. 바카라�Delhi has realised that to restore statehood it has to engage with the PAGD under the leadership of Farooq Abdullah as the other formulations and formations have failed,바카라� says an NC leader who doesn바카라�t wish to be named.

The senior Abdullah바카라�s recent PAGD meeting has rattled the Apni Party. 바카라�After the abrogation of Article 370, PAGD leaders were posturing that they had not reconciled with Delhi. What they are doing today, they should have done in October 2020 and we might have had an elected government in J&K by now,바카라� says Bukhari, the Apni Party president. He has a point bec­ause Abdullah바카라�s party바카라�after the success in the council elections바카라�is talking about statehood restoration, but avoiding questions about Article 370, saying it바카라�s for the Supreme Court to decide.

By Naseer Ganai in Srinagar