KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
MP Muzaffar Hussain Beg’s brief speech at Islamabad led Chief Minister Ms Mehbooba Mufti get emotional as he talked about the beginning of the railway services in Kashmir. She put on her black goggles and hid her face behind a paper with a hanky in hand.
Beg said that when he was accompanying Mufti Sayeed, the then Chief Minister, to meet then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he had an unprecedented direction: “do not talk about money”. While they had had dinner, he said, no issue cropped up that would have brought some solace to the then Finance Minister Beg as far as resources in the public kitty were concerned.
“After we had Kehwa,” Beg said, Mufti talked and he said Kashmir is a place that is cut away from the mainland. Then Vajpayee said he accepts “Kashmir is far away”. “Let us do a bit and you do your bit,” Beg said he remembers Vajpayee saying, “we will get the railways and reduce the distance and you get the people closer.”
This rail, Beg said, is the outcome of those efforts which led to the fast-forwarding of the rail to Srinagar.
Praising Ms Mufti for having her own idea for betterment of J&K, Beg said Mufti’s daughter has picked up a lot from her father but is experienced enough to have her vision too.
