PDP legislators being coerced to leave party with threats of NIA raids: Mehbooba

Srinagar: Former Chief Minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti has claimed that her legislators are being coerced to leave the party with threats of NIA raids, said a media report.
Mehbooba said that several legislators told her that “tremendous pressure” was being applied on them to leave the party. “I’m not saying that New Delhi is doing it but I did talk to some people in New Delhi and told them that a perception is being created through media reports that MLAs can be bought with money or be motivated to leave PDP for important cabinet portfolios, and if they’re rejecting even this, they’re being threatened with NIA raids,” Mehbooba Mufti was quoted as having said by News18.
Mehbooba, according to the report said that NIA element was creating an element of doubt in the Kashmir valley that has a tendency of threatening its fabric.
“Kashmir is a place where separatism, mainstream politics and militancy often co-exist, but the threat of NIA was introducing an element of doubt in the valley which would threaten its fabric greatly,” she said, according to the report. On her earlier statement that more Salahuddins would be born if Delhi split her party, she said: “If you break PDP, how will you face the person who braved bullets and other threats to vote for National Conference or PDP or Congress? You’ll break their faith in democracy.”
She claimed such attempts would re-create 1984-like situation when the then Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah was dismissed to make way for his estranged brother-in-law Ghulam Mohammad Shah.