Though mainstream parties talking about unity in the hours of deepening crisis in Kashmir is good omen for the future of Kashmir but the same parties pulling out in different directions is saddening and shocking for the people of Kashmir. Mehbooba talked about voting of his two Rajaya Sabja members against triple talaq bill but barely a day later both the Rajaya Sabha members of the PDP abstained from the voting just to ease the passing of the bill for appeasing BJP. Mehbooba’s remark about disciplinary action against her party’s two Rajaya Sabha members looks absurd as she could have easily shunted out both the MPs from the party the moment they abstained from the voting on the bill in the Rajaya Sabha the way she expelled former minister Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari on charges of anti-party activities. Mehbooba’s call for unity can’t be taken serious by her arch rivals the time when actions of her party MPs during voting on triple talaq bill have brought her party on the same page with the BJP. In fact abstaining of PDP MPs during voting on triple talaq bill in contradiction to Mehbooba’s promise of voting against the bill might have prompted Farooq Abdullah to lead the delegation of her own party for a meeting with Prime Minister over Kashmir crisis instead of taking along with him the PDP Chief and leaders of other mainstream parties.
Mehbooba leading a delegation of smaller parties and Omar Abdullah leading a delegation of his own party for parallel meeting with the Governor Satya Pal Malik over Kashmir’s current crisis shows that Abdullahs’ and Muftis’ don’t try to do what they say even on issues concerning political identity of Kashmiri people. With two largest mainstream parties National Conference and PDP pulling in different directions while talking about protection of Kashmir’s political identity, their talk about unity of Kashmir’s mainstream camp for defending the special status of the state has become a crude joke. Had Muftis’ and Abdullahs’ been sincere to the cause of political identity then they won’t have preferred alliance of their respective parties with Congress and BJP in recent years but they would have allied with each other in the larger interests of the people of Kashmir. Today when the tinkering with the special laws giving special status to the state has become a threat to their own political survival, they talk about unity for their own survival but drop enough hints to pull out in different directions when it comes to the issue of their personal own political interests now threatened by the provocative measures of the incumbent central government .
