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‘I felt suffocated’: Another senior PDP leader resigns
Alam, a former member of the legislative council (MLC) and party’s district president, Srinagar, has written to the party president announcing his resignation.
Senior People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader Khurshid Alam announced his decision to quit the party on Sunday saying “we are mainstream politicians, not separatists”.
Alam, a former member of the legislative council (MLC) and party’s district president, Srinagar, has written to the party president announcing his resignation.
“Yes I have resigned…I felt suffocated,” he told HT. “We are mainstream politicians, we are not separatists. Electoral politics is our politics,” he said.
Alam said that there was no vision on major issues. “The party lacks a roadmap and direction on various issues as well as party affairs. My stand on party affairs and that of the party was totally different,” he said.
Before his plunge into politics, Alam was a prominent employees union leader. There are rumours of him either joining the People’s Conference or the Congress.
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“I have been into politics for decades now. I can’t be at the bay. I will be meeting my colleagues and friends to discuss my future plan,” he said.
The development comes a few days after the party’s state general secretary Surinder Choudhary resigned from the posts of state general secretary and member political affairs committee (PAC).
After Mehbooba Mufti was re-elected as the president of the party in February, the party had chosen its office bearers and constituted PAC last week during which Choudhary and Alam were chosen among others as its members.
PDP’s founding member and former J-K deputy chief minister Muzaffar Baig also joined Sajad Lone’s Peoples’ Conference in Srinagar last week. Baig left along with his wife Safeena after the latter was denied the district development council ticket from north Kashmir last year.
The PDP had suffered a major jolt last year after six of its senior leaders had quit the party.
The party was formed by Mufti’s father and former J-K chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in 1999 after leaving the Congress. The PDP went on to form the government along with the Congress in 2003 and later, in 2015, with the Bharatiya Janta Party.
However, many of the founding members have left the PDP, some to join new political parties.
