Ex-IAS Shah Faesal launches new party

Srinagar: Shah Faesal, the 2009 Indian administrative service (IAS) topper, who took the country by storm after quitting his job over varied issues concerning Jammu and Kashmir and the Indian Muslims, floated a new political party in the state on Sunday.

Student activist from JNU, Shehla Rashid, is among the few key faces who have joined him in what he said is a sincere and creative effort to change the political environs of the restive Himalayan state.

The new party has been named Jammu and Kashmir Peoples’ Movement (JKPM) and its dominant slogan would be Ab Hawa Badalegi (now the wind will change).”

The 35-year-old former bureaucrat, while announcing the launch of the new political party at a rally held at a public park in Srinagar’s posh Raj Bagh locality ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha elections, said: “I’ve not come here to engage in traditional or regional politics, but to seek an amicable solution of the Kashmir problem, together with my team and the people who are joining us, as per the wishes and aspirations of its people.” However, he also said that the new party believes in abridging the distance between Delhi and Srinagar and will act as a catalyst towards resolving the Kashmir issue by India and Pakistan.

Stating that the new party is neither region specific nor a religious one, he said that it belongs to Muslims the same way it does to Dogras and Buddhists. He sought the return of displaced Kashmiri Pandits to their home and hearth in Kashmir with dignity and asserted that the actual ghar wapsi of the members of the minority community is crucial for the Valley’s ethos and politics. He said that the JKPM “will engender sustainable peace in J&K by making the people politically empowered, economically prosperous, socially emancipated, ethically evolved, culturally enlightened, and environmentally conscious.”

He expressed his serious concern over the attempts underway to divide J&K on regional and communal lines and said that his party is against the trifurcation of the state.

Explaining the urgency of launching his own party, Mr Faesal said that he had talked to two major political parties of the state for joining them and both of them treated him respectfully.

“But when people heard that I would be joining them, they cautioned me against such a move and said that the hands of these parties are drenched in the blood of Kashmiris. This has been the main factor in the birth of our own separate party,” he said

He regretted that now the people in the same parties are saying that he is a proxy of BJP and an agent of the RSS and that his launching his own political party is a conspiracy hatched by Delhi to divide the voters in the upcoming elections.