KL Desk
Srinagar
The Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) has said if the chief minister Omar Abdullah is so confident about his four year ‘report card’ and public support for him, he should not be have been seen as begging for an alliance.
“The fact is that the chief minister is extremely jittery about his future and his bravado doesn’t match either his performance at the ground or the political credibility of his party” chief spokesperson of PDP Naeem Akhtar and senior leader Syed Altaf Bukhari said here while responding to Omar Abdullah’s statement in Ganderbal on Tuesday.
Akhtar and Bukhari said the chief minister in his fifth year of heading a coalition has not a single major scheme, project or program to his credit and now he is trying to blame the opposition for his failures.
“In fact he has led the state backwards from a position of hope and growth into despair, anger and anxiety apart from a disastrous performance on development front,” the two leaders said.
“Not to speak of the state, the chief minister doesn’t have a single achievement even in his own constituency,” they said and pointed out that he should in fifth year of his rule have been inaugurating the projects started by him, if any, instead of making promises about future.
“On the one hand Omar saheb claims he is not worried about his criticism by the opposition while on the other hand he talks more about PDP than his own party,” said the duo.
“In a democracy it is the duty of the opposition to expose the weaknesses of the government and highlight people’s problems but the despotic and arrogant mindset of NC born out of its long held monopoly doesn’t allow it to see this as a normal political activity, with the result that the ruling party is shrinking and reducing to a client outfit trying to cling to power by hook or by crook,” read the party statement.
The PDP leaders said that the present coalition is deceiving people. “Present coalition is defined by fraud, corruption, inefficiency and lack of vision that has resulted in stagnation of the state in an environment of overall growth in the country.”
Talking about the performance of PDP led coalition government, they said that public accountability has arrived in the state from the emergence of PDP as an alternative and people will have a choice to decide about their preferences on the basis of programs and performance rather than ‘fairy tales’ of the past and hollow promises for future.
“Fairy tales don’t get votes anymore in a state that now knows that governments can bring change in their lives as they witnessed for a brief while when NC was marginalised after 2002,” they reminded the CM.
Referring to recent stinkers from the GOI and Planning Commission of India (PCI) to state government Akhtar and Bukhari said no government has so severely been condemned for non performance as the present one.
“Inefficiency of state government has led government of India to hold back the special plan assistance leading to severe cash crunch with treasuries and departments unable to pay cheques and bills. Further releases under the Prime Minister’s reconstruction Program have been stopped for non performance. This program, the biggest economic intervention in the state secured by the PDP led coalition is delayed like the other major program funded by the ADB and executed through ERA,” they said.
Reminding Omar that public memory is not so short, they said “to forget all his atrocities and his false promises that people would vote for him just for his asking or political jugglery, he will certainly be held accountable by voters for misleading them in his own constituency during last elections where he had raised the infamous slogan ‘meter todo heater lagao’ and that his government would provide additional subsidy on cooking gas or under matric candidates would be recruited in police, “they said and added that the electricity has disappeared in four years in spite of a four fold increase in tariff and doubling of generation in the state, gas is available only in black market.
“Omar government has started talking of fast track recruitment only when the elections are approaching. This is clearly to benefit the favourites and buy votes for the ruling parties and make their agents rich as they are already out to collect money for jobs, “they said and added that the transparency in recruitment brought about by previous government has completely been sabotaged and now jobs are openly on sale apart from re employing hundreds of retired officials in place of deserving, talented youngsters
