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PDP, AIP to skip NC’s Jantar Mantar protest for statehood
The AIP, however, said that Baramulla MP Er Rashid will go barefoot to Parliament and observe a hunger strike on July 20, in solidarity with the statehood protest
As National Conference (NC) legislators and leaders begin leaving for New Delhi, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) have announced they will not participate in the Jantar Mantar protest.
The AIP, however, said that Baramulla MP Er Rashid will go barefoot to Parliament and observe a hunger strike on July 20, in solidarity with the statehood protest.
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, in a letter to NC president Farooq Abdullah, said that the PDP will join the Jantar Mantar protest only if the restoration of Article 370, the release of political prisoners, and the lifting of the ban on Jamaat are central to its agenda.
AIP chief spokesperson Inam Un Nabi, along with other senior leaders of the party, read out the message sent by Er Rashid from Tihar Jail at a press conference.
Nabi, quoting the MP Baramulla’s message, said: “I do not want to add bitterness towards anyone, but before asking the AIP to support its protest for the restoration of statehood, the NC leadership needs to be reminded of its intentional and organised betrayals, which the party indulged in to sabotage the AIP’s sincere and much-needed initiatives, including the clemency resolution for Afzal Guru in the Assembly, protection of the Right to Eat, observance of State Flag Day, declaring June 7 as a State Holiday, and protecting the human rights of the people of J&K. The NC and the other constituents of the so-called Gupkar Alliance have wilfully helped the BJP Government strengthen its narrative and shift the goalposts by confining themselves only to the demand for restoration of statehood.”
The message from the jailed MP further said that the NC cannot distance itself from the fact that it secured an absolute majority in the 2024 Assembly elections only after assuring the people that it would fight for the restoration of autonomy in its original form, in accordance with the resolution passed by the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly in 1999.
“The NC must also not forget that the people of J&K have not made enormous sacrifices merely for the restoration of statehood, but for the restoration of all their legitimate rights that have been taken away from them from time to time,” it said. The message further said that the AIP cannot shut its eyes to the sufferings of the people of J&K.
“To express our solidarity with the NC’s proposed protest on July 20, I will observe a day-long hunger strike and walk barefoot to Parliament on July 21 to stress the need for a meaningful, time-bound, and result-oriented dialogue between the Centre and the elected representatives, along with other legitimate stakeholders of Jammu and Kashmir,” Er Rashid said.
He, however, added that the AIP’s support for the July 20 protest must not, by any stretch of imagination, be construed as an endorsement of the NC’s weak and diluted political stand on various legitimate issues.
Inam Un Nabi said that the AIP has always stood for the restoration of the complete political and constitutional rights of the people of J&K. “While the NC’s decision to protest for statehood is welcome, Omar Abdullah’s step is too little, too late,” he said.
PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, in her letter to the NC president, said that after careful consideration and deliberations with her senior colleagues, they have come to the conclusion that it would not be in the fitness of things for them to participate in a protest whose raison d’etre is solely and exclusively the demand for statehood.
Meanwhile, as the NC is still waiting for permission to hold a protest at Jantar Mantar, several party legislators and leaders have left for New Delhi. J&K CM Omar Abdullah has already made it clear that they will reach New Delhi even if permission is denied to them. J&K Congress leaders have already said all six legislators and other senior leaders will be part of the Jantar Mantar protest. Earlier, NC president Farooq Abdullah had written to 54 national and J&K leaders seeking their support for the statehood protest.
