As Rahul Yatra enters Kashmir, why Mehbooba Mufti is going the extra mile

Behind the PDP’s enthusiasm is the realisation that the coalition government it formed with the BJP in 2015 still casts a shadow over it in Jammu and Kashmir, and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not going to turn into an Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is still widely regarded in Kashmir for his call for a “healing touch” for the Valley.

With the BJP out of the equation, the Congress remains the only pan-India party the PDP can hope to join hands with in national politics. The Congress and PDP have earlier been in alliance in J&K, having run the state for six years from 2002 onwards, despite the PDP’s “soft separatism”. It was this “soft-separatism” line that helped the PDP gain a foothold in Kashmir and dislodge the National Conference (NC) as the sole mainstream political voice of the erstwhile state.

“We have been very outspoken on this issue (Rahul’s yatra), we have been saying it clearly. Rahul is the sole voice who has revived taking an ideological position in India, which had disappeared from the political narrative because of electoral politics,” said senior PDP leader Naeem Akhtar.

Referring to the PDP-Congress rule, Akhtar said the Congress had been a big support. “By and large, the Congress stood by the Agenda of Alliance. The Congress tolerated the mainstreaming of Kashmir issues as the party supported the then Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed,” Akhtar said. “With the same agenda, we tried to strike an alliance with the BJP but the misfortune is that the BJP opposed it. They dismembered the state and disenfranchised the people of Jammu and Kashmir. It was anti-thesis of what PDP stood for.”

The PDP is also taking heart from Rahul’s reference to the August 6, 2019, Congress resolution, seeing it as the party’s stated policy for J&K. “It (the Instrument of Accession and Article 370) deserved to be honoured, until it was amended, after consultation with all sections of the people and strictly in accordance with the Constitution of India,” the Congress resolution of 2019 said. “What the BJP accomplished… has grave implications going well beyond J&K and calls into question the very idea of India being a Union of States. Jammu and Kashmir has acceded to India as one state and no government has power to change its status or divide it or reduce any part of it to a Union Territory.”

Mufti, according to party insiders, is hopeful that the Congress will help the PDP campaign to have the decisions taken on August 5, 2019, revoked.

The BJP’s attempts to break the PDP – successful to a large extent as almost the entire top leadership of the party has left for greener pastures – has also pushed the former J&K CM closer to the Congress.

Besides, Mufti’s roots lie in the grand old party. Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was a longtime Congressman and Mehbooba too was a Congress legislator before breaking away to form the PDP in 1999.

As the National Conference’s Omar Abdullah received Rahul as he entered Kashmir from Banihal on Friday, PDP leaders also pointed out that the Yatra had a significance that parties like it cannot ignore. It is set to be the first major unhindered political event in the Kashmir Valley since the abrogation of Article 370.

“It could well be a cathartic experience for the people,” said a PDP insider. “This is how the people of the Valley also feel and that is why we expect that people irrespective of their political ideology may join it.”