While it had just bought a bit of peace after gagging the party chief spokesman, NC is experiencing new tremors – this time by its nominee to the Rajya Sabha. For the second time in the last one year, he has talked and party insiders say ‘talked too much’.
The ‘talking’ came son afterworkers of Kashmir’s grand old party made public their disenchantment over the behave our of the ministers towards them. Ratanpuri crept into newspaper front pages last week when he termed J&K as a police state and accused one of chief minister Omar Abdullah’s trusted aides of taking the state back to the Gulab Singh’s days.
The broadcaster, nominated to Rajya Sabha, told newspapers that he is afraid of police because “they are running parallel government.” Within days after the government punished two senior police officers for using “bad language” against some politicians while investigating a case in Jammu, Rattanpuri raked up the inaction in the case of use of“derogatory and foul” language by SSP Pulwama against him on July 26.
There was no follow up to the privilege motion he moved against the police officer. He said that in the district board meeting of Pulwama on July 28, social welfare minister Ms SakiaIt too had advised him to stay silent fearing SP of the district “might fire from his pistol”. This, he said, shows “how much Kashmiris are disempowered” and how even a MP “is easily hounded”.
“I believe that Kashmir is, from a Kashmiri young boy in the street to a Kashmiri nationa list politician in the parliament are all absolutely disempowered,” he was quoted saying. He said police tirade against him is “patronized by political and administrative bosses” that includedalmost everybody in the chief minister’s office.
For a day, there was silence. And later, Mubarak Gul came out saying the party MP was allowing hisfrustration to get the better of him. He reminded Rattanpuri of being the erstwhile “small time broadcaster” who targeted the man who(Omar) nominated him despite his lack of any support within and outside the party. Gul says Rattanpuri is a failed parliamentarian who is soroot less that he is incapable of even organizing a roadside meet.
In the interesting verbal duels, it is clear that Gul is fighting somebody’s battle. Asked why they choose Gul for counterattacking, an NC leader said: “Both share a semblance of background and political acumen and both have worked together earlier when one was singing a thumri and another recording it!”
