A DAY after National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah was named as the party candidate from the Ganderbal Assembly seat – a U-turn from his previous announcement not to contest – Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti said she remained firm on her resolve to stay away. PDP sources admitted requests had been made to Mufti, who remains the main face of her party, to also enter the contest. With the NC and Congress sealing an alliance, the PDP – while part of the INDIA bloc along with them – has been left on its own. The PDP is also much weakened after a steady exit of leaders from its ranks and failed to win a single seat in the recent Lok Sabha elections, with Mufti herself losing from Anantnag-Rajouri. On Wednesday, Mufti repeated that she would not contest, telling the media that she could not aspire to head a Union territory after being the CM of a state “with a powerful Assembly”. “Now the Assembly resembles a municipality. You cannot pass legislation… As Omar sahab said, you cannot even transfer a peon, and if someone comes to me and seeks the release of an individual, I would not be able to do that.” In an interview to The Indian Express just before the announcement of the polls, Omar had said that given the new powers with the Lieutenant Governor now, the CM would have to petition for every small thing. A party source said: “At a time when the PDP is perhaps at its lowest, still recovering from the fallout of its alliance with the BJP in 2014 and, more recently, from the loss in the Lok Sabha polls, it would be prudent for Mehboobaji to lead us. However, she resolved not to contest in the existing scenario and she does not want to go back on her word.” Both Omar and Mufti had held since 2019, when Article 370 was abrogated and J&K reduced to a Union territory, that they would not contest any Assembly polls without statehood being restored. On his change of stand, Omar has said that he did not want to ask his colleagues to contest while giving the impression that the Assembly they were fighting for was powerless. This time, Mufti’s daughter Iltija is making her poll debut from the family’s Bijbehara Assembly seat. On Wednesday, Mufti said that, for her, “Our agenda is the most important consideration.” On the PDP being isolated in the wake of the NC and Congress forging an alliance, she said: “We have always fought alone. We are walking the line as per our agenda – peace with dignity. Whether someone walks with us or not, people should be with us.” She also asserted that “the Kashmir issue stands where it was and it cannot be ignored. To resolve that, restoring Article 370 is important”. The PDP chief went on to talk about the decisions the government she headed had taken, even when in alliance with the BJP – to underline that this would not be possible for any new regime. As CM, she had revoked FIRs against 12,000 people in 2016, ensured implementation of a ceasefire, and opened roads for people to meet their relatives across the Line of Control, she said. Mufti also talked about the PDP’s other terms in power and measures taken then. "When we had an alliance with the Congress in 2002, we had the agenda to end POTA, release prisoners including Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Yasin Malik from jail. Can you think of that today? When we allied with the BJP in 2014, we had an Agenda of Alliance in which we had it in writing that Article 370 will not be touched, AFSPA will be revoked, talks will be held with Pakistan and the Hurriyat, control of power projects would be returned to J&K, among other things.” Unlike her party’s commitment to its agenda and its concerns “beyond power”, Mufti said, the Congress and NC had formed an alliance “for power". In the 2014 Assembly elections, the PDP had won 28 seats, all in the Valley, and emerged as the single-largest party. The BJP had won 28 constituencies, all in Jammu. The two had then come together to form a government, which fell in 2018 after the BJP pulled out. On Wednesday, the PDP released names of 17 candidates for seats in central and north Kashmir going to polls on September 25 and October 1, in the second and third phases of the election. From Ganderbal, senior PDP leader Bashir Ahmed Mir will take on Omar. Two former PDP members who quit the party after 2019 and rejoined earlier this month, Abdul Haq Khan and Bashaarat Bukhari, have been re-fielded from their respective constituencies, Lolab and Kreeri. Prominent Shia face Aga Syed Muntazir Mehdi, who joined the PDP on Tuesday, has been fielded from Budgam. The party also nominated candidates for Surankote, Mendhar, Gulabgarh and Rajouri seats in the Jammu province.
