KL Report
SRINAGAR
Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) president, Mehbooba Mufti Tuesday said youth of the state especially those living in Kashmir have been pushed to the wall and denied opportunities on political, social and economic fronts.
“The siege around the state in the wake of independence denied them avenues of cultural interaction and they were left with the feeling of being bottle up in an atmosphere of suspicion, mistrust and suppression,” Mehbooba said.
Mehbooba was addressing a youth convention in Khansahib constituency in Budgam district. Mehbooba said that given the right vision, direction and leadership, youth of the state can script a new destiny for themselves and that is the centre piece of her party’s agenda. 
Mehbooba repeated that PDP started with just one seat in 1999; reached up to 16 in 2002; and then 21 seats in 2008.
“In 2008, the PDP got maximum vote share in the state, reducing the 100 year old party from more than 60 to 28 seats, despite boycott in Srinagar, which benefited it (NC) immensely, she said and added that keeping in view the PDP’s record in restoring the sense of security among people along with best form of governance provided by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, the party is emerging as the best alternative for the state.
She said that Kashmir has historically provided the leadership to the entire South Asia in knowledge and entrepreneurship and there is no reason why that status of the state cannot be revived.
Successive generations suffered this maltreatment which ignited resistance in different forms and combined with overall political uncertainty and the youth could never realize their creative potential, she said.
Mehbooba said that at every turn of events NC has the unchallenged political force exploited them to meet their own political ends. “Power for NC always came at the cost of youth of the state, whose interests and stakes were always sold out for the NC to be able to gain power,” she said.
Referring to the growing unemployment crisis in the state, Mehbooba said it is a sad commentary on the performance of the NC over the past six decades that three lakh candidates wrote an examination for 12 thousand jobs carrying a monthly remuneration of 3500 rupees. At the same time the present regime has reemployed hundreds of retired beruecrats on top posts giving them monthly salaries running into lakhs.
Taking dig at the initiatives of government, Mehbooba said that the centrally sponsored schemes like Udaan and Himayat have not been able to have much impact because of the govt’s unwillingness or inability to facilitate their implementation. She said the recent reports about fake colleges in Punjab duping hundreds of Kashmiri students should have evoked prompt response from the govt, but the govt is completely clueless about such frauds, as it is itself engaged in cheating the people of the state.
