Though there is nothing new about defections in mainstream politics in Jammu & Kashmir, but defectors tend to change their loyalties after every six months in Kashmir and the nonstop trend of defections has shown unprecedented rise after the scrapping of special status and bifurcation of erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir state into two union territories on August 5 last year. The trend has undoubtedly unnerved even the biggest mainstream parties including National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peoples’ Conference. Interestingly the deserters of Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP are now deserting Sajad Gani Lone and some of them may even desert the grand old mainstream party National Conference in coming few months. The people who had deserted PDP to seek political asylum in Sajad Gani Lone’s Peoples Conference before August 5 last year because of Lone’s proximity with the BJP the party in power at the centre are now desperate to defect to newly floated J&K Apni Party led by Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari. Since the J&K Apni Party is the only political party in Kashmir which shows it’s willingness to participate in assembly elections even if held without restoration of statehood to Jammu & Kashmir, the tendency of the defectors to defect to J&K Apni Party shows that they are driven by the motives of political opportunism and not the spirit of public service. Deserters of Sajad Lone’s Peoples’ Conference can’t be friends of Altaf Bukhari’s J&K Apni Party or even Narendra Modi’s BJP in Kashmir as they have not proved loyalists of Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP.
The defectors who couldn’t become friends of electors who voted them to power can never ever become the friends of one or the other mainstream party be it Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference , Mehbooba’s PDP , Sajad Lone’s Peoples Conference or Altaf Bukhari’s J&K Apni Party. It is time for the heads of mainstream parties to learns lessons from defections of seasonal political defectors in Jammu & Kashmir.
Interestingly the BJP’s top brass has set the trend of discrediting political opportunists of Kashmir one after the other just to convey a message that deserters of Kashmir’s mainstream parties can’t be the friends of the saffron party which has almost shut doors for entire Kashmir mainstream in power struggle in Jammu & Kashmir. Though political opportunism has ruined the mainstream politics in entirety in Jammu & Kashmir, but the Kashmir’s political defectors are yet to learn lessons from their nonstop practice of defections. Defections not only ruin the future of defectors but also of the parties they quit and join after every six monts. While Modi’s BJP has shut doors of political exploitation for mainstream parties in Jammu & Kashmir, the political defectors by their actions are not only spoiling their political careers but they are also ruining the political identity of their own people who have given most of them the opportunities to represent them in the erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir assembly not once but even twice and thrice. The defectors who couldn’t become friends of electors who voted them to power can never ever become the friends of one or the other mainstream party be it Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference , Mehbooba’s PDP , Sajad Lone’s Peoples Conference or Altaf Bukhari’s J&K Apni Party. It is time for the heads of mainstream parties to learns lessons from defections of seasonal political defectors in Jammu & Kashmir.
