Just to comply with the rules set for inner party democracy by the Election Commission of India the mainstream political parties are electing Presidents and all other office bearers of the parties are nominated by their presidents later. This wrong precedence set by the mainstream political parties has virtually given the elected president the right to install their confidents on key party positions and as such the party presidents claiming to be the democrats by all standards of understandabilities have become autocrats. This bad precedence allowed by the Election Commission has prompted most of the president to key control with the confidents of their own families. Barely 24 hours after her election as the PDP President for the sixth consecutive time, the incumbent Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on one hand nominated the senior most party leader Muzaffar Hussain Baig as head of committee constituted to look for the amendments in PDP’s organizational constitution but on the other she nominated her maternal uncle a defeated MLA of 2014 assembly elections as party’s Vice President. Ironically the PDP President like party presidents of other mainstream party presidents is nominating other party office bearers including general secretaries, provincial secretaries, district presidents and zonal presidents on her own.
Electing president for the party just give him sweep powers to autocratically nominate people of his own choice for key party positions is totally against the spirit of democracy and it is only election commission which is empowered to find ways and means of enforcing more strict rules for the election of all the office bearers of the political as leaders of upright political acumen who would enforce rules for election and not selection of the party office bearers at all organizational levels on their own without dictates from election commission are found missing in today’s political arena more in Jammu & Kashmir than the rest of the country.
Though obviously the purpose of nominating Muzaffar Hussain Baig as the head of a committee constituted to look for the amendments in the PDP’s organizational constitution should have been complete organizational democratization of PDP in the constitution of decision making institutions for the party from top down to grass root levels but unfortunately the PDP President Mehbooba Mufti has dispelled the good impression created by her decision of putting in place a committee under the chairmanship of senior most party leader Muzaffar Hussain Baig to look for amendments in the party’s organizational constitution. So saddening is the undemocratic precedence of the organizational restructuring that even the party presidents of national level political parties including Congress and BJP are nominating party presidents for the states on their own but not allowing the party cadres at the grass roots to choose leader of their own choices for the party posts in the state units of their concerned states. Electing president for the party just give him sweep powers to autocratically nominate people of his own choice for key party positions is totally against the spirit of democracy and it is only election commission which is empowered to find ways and means of enforcing more strict rules for the election of all the office bearers of the political as leaders of upright political acumen who would enforce rules for election and not selection of the party office bearers at all organizational levels on their own without dictates from election commission are found missing in today’s political arena more in Jammu & Kashmir than the rest of the country.
