Srinagar: People's Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said that the ‘One Nation One Election’ undermines the federal system of the country and accused the NDA government of ‘destroying’ the Constitution of India.
“Unfortunately, the NDA government is destroying the Constitution of India day by day. India is a federal country. There is a federal structure here. One Nation One Election is undermining this federal structure. They talk of 2047 but instead of moving forward, they are going backwards. They want to take us back to the same dictatorship, which I think is very wrong,” she said in reply to a question from workers at the party’s general council meeting.
Hitting out at the National Conference led government for maintaining silence, she said they have 50 seats in the legislative assembly and three Member of Parliaments yet they don’t have courage to take stand on issues. .
“Did you hear about prisoners in the last two and half months from the ruling party? We released not only prisoners but top leaders like Geelani sahib, Yasin Malik and Shabir Shah. PDP was formed to face and fight challenges. We don’t want to criticise anyone but am surprised when CM told his party leaders to remain silent,” Mufti said.
She said she does not have expectations from the ruling party on big issues like Article 370 or statehood but they should fulfil the basic issues like power, reservation issue.
The former chief minister said that the PDP will shoulder this responsibility and speak on the behalf of the people while vowing to continue fighting for the restoration of Article 370 and the reinstatement of full statehood for the region.
“While others may hesitate, we will not stop fighting for the dignity, rights and aspirations of people. The PDP has been and will always remain the torchbearer of justice and peace in Jammu and Kashmir,” she added.
The PDP chief also said that she schooled her daughter Iltija Mufti on the party's history and its self-rule.
“I told Iltija this morning, you still don’t know the answers to many questions. You should read PDP’s self-rule and history in a better way,” she said while referring to an event where Iltija was asked about the difference between the National Conference resolution on autonomy and PDP’s self-rule.
“The answer was that we didn’t have the majority (in 2014) to pass the resolution. But despite that without resolution, we initiated the process for self-rule implementation,” Mufti said.
