KL Report
Srinagar
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), state’s principal opposition, rubbished the claim made by the National Conference (NC) general secretary that late Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was not a party to the 1975 accord. It said “denial of their actions was nothing new for the house of Abdullahs.”
In a statement the party chief spokesperson Naeem Akhtar said such backtracking came naturally to NC leadership as they thrived only in the grey space of Kashmir politics while the people of the state suffered as a result of their acts of omission and commission. “It is inconceivable that the accord could have been only a handiwork of the late (Afzal) Beg saheb without participation of Sheikh saheb though its only objective was installing Sheikh saheb as chief minister and making way for his successors to the throne.”
Sheikh Nazir was reported to have claimed in an interview to Greater Kashmir that “Sheikh saheb was not directly involved in the 1975 exercise, it was Mirza Mohammad Afzal Beg and G parthasarthy who were talking to each other”.
Akhtar said the virtual disowning of 1975 accord by the Abdullah family as some kind of an underhand act of Beg was yet another specimen of betrayal of a close associate of the late Sheikh but that was not its only import. “This is an attempt at rewriting history to divert attention from the latest phase of NC seeking salvation and survival as an appendage of Congress which obviously raises questions about its claims to a regional character”, Akhter said.
Akhtar said now when NC has declared it’s janam janam ka saath with the congress that holds 1975 Accord as the most sacrosanct agreement on Kashmir, denying Sheikh Abdullah’s participation in it is an act of such duplicity and brazenness that can be practiced only by a party like the NC.
“The accord of 1975 was another U-turn through which NC secured power once again without elections and accepted all the erosion in state’s autonomous character. Not only this, the NC leadership even gave away the right to make changes in the nomenclature of the governor and chief minister under state constitution in July 1975, only five months after the accord” Akhtar said.
Wishing advocate Sheikh Nazir a speedy recovery, the PDP spokesperson said the people of the state had by now become used to amusing claims, charges, denials, retractions and apologies by Dr Mustafa Kamal on various issues relating to New Delhi and congress “but it seems the entry of Nazir saheb into the discourse is necessitated by the latest round of mun tu shudam by Omar Abdullah with Congress that threatens to dilute NC’s very existence.”
