Launch of new mainstream parties and combinations in Kashmir valley is apparently a well conceived plan of furthering the prospects of a fractured mandate in Kashmir valley to change the valley majority into minority in the formation of a new government in Jammu & Kashmir state. The political exploitation of the electorate by Engineer Rasheed and support to his candidature by leaders like Gh Hassan Mir a former minister and leader of lesser known Democratic Party (Nationalist) and Shah Faesal the bureaucrat-turned-politician having limited influence in selected pockets of 2-3 assembly constituencies in North Kashmir’s Kupwara and Baramulla districts was sufficient enough to indicate the attempts of an electoral divide in the recently held parliamentary elections in Kashmir. The projection of Engineer Rasheed by both Mir and Faesal in the fight for North Kashmir parliamentary constituency was obviously part of a well conceived plan to horizontally and vertically divide the Kashmir electorate before the conduct of assembly elections in the state. The formation of Peoples’ United Front (PUF) by Er Rasheed and Shah Faesal early this week is surely the continuation of a vicious campaign of the people of disintegrating tendencies for furthering the prospects of a divisive political agenda in the valley and Prof Sidique Wahid a key eye watcher on Kashmir affairs was the first to call the formation of Peoples’ United Front (PUF) a dangerous trend to divide the people of Kashmir before the announcement of assembly elections in the state . Many more eye watchers in Kashmir have said it publicly that unlike the erstwhile Muslim United Front (MUF) launched way back in the year 1987, the Peoples’ United Front (PUF) would finally fall in the lap of BJP like the PDP after dividing the electorate in the Valley. Obviously the attempt to further the plan of electoral division in Kashmir valley is to facilitate resurgence of BJP in Jammu region for changing the valley majority into minority in the formation of a new government in the state.
Interestingly Chowdhdry Lal Singh a former BJP leader recently said that National Conference and PDP would get just over half a dozen seats from Kashmir valley and predicted a fractured mandate from Kashmir valley in the next assembly elections which he said would be a bigger advantage for Jammu centric parties. Er Rasheed used to shout the slogans of plebiscite in Kashmir but talks about the formation of a political alternative to National Conference (NC) and PDP now . People of Kashmir still remember Rasheed’s pronouncement to quit his assembly seat during 2016 public rising and withdrawing it in less than 24 hours. Shah Faesal a failure in bureaucracy can’t be a success in politics by any standards of human understandabilities. People still remember Faesal’s tweet “I am director of shut schools” over the closure of schools during summer unrest in 2016. Even naives understand that had Faesal the wisdom to resolve a crisis like situation, he won’t have fought with trade union leaders commanding huge influence over more than one lakh government teachers running thousands of schools across the state. Kashmiris know that the central government robed the National Conference of a bigger mandate in 2002, 2008 and 2014 assembly elections and put PDP in command to further the agenda of scraping special laws giving special status to the people of Jammu & Kashmiri state . Attempts to change the political arithmetic of the state assembly vested with the powers of accepting or denying extension of any central law to the state are not obviously heading to any dead end. Beyond Delhi’s expectation Kashmiris have understood it now that they can’t now commit another suicide by allowing the Delhi to rob both NC and PDP of a bigger mandate and put some other party or political combination in command to blow up the special laws giving special status to the state into pieces.
