PDP in disarray: Recovering from a crushed dream not an easy task

Srinagar: Since losing power in June this year, Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) is facing hard and turbulent times. Several prominent faces including former ministers and legislators have quit the party. More are planning to walk out on it, the party insiders said. Social media users have termed it as ‘rats are first to leave a sinking ship.’

But the party president Mehbooba Mufti has shrugged the “exodus” off by saying that “This is election time (when) people do go and come (in parties)”.

Her deputy in the party and former minister Abdur Rehman Veeri appears to be more optimistic. “Only the aaya ram, gaya ram types have left and their leaving has evoked strong critical reaction among the dedicated and loyal party cadres. It is turning out to be misfortune with positive outcome for PDP.”    

The party insiders, however, say that things are not as easy as its leadership wishes to project. PDP, the party launched in 1999 mainly as a stratagem to brazen out Jammu and Kashmir’s oldest political party — the National Conference (NC) — to checkmate its strong base in rural people is in deep trouble.

Former minister Imran Raza Ansari, considered among few of its vote-pullers for his also being a religious head of Shia community, was the first to risen in revolt against Ms. Mufti and the coterie around her. Several other important party leaders, former ministers and legislators imitated him.

Some of these had earlier publicly criticised Ms. Mufti over her “domineering” behaviour as party president. They also accused her of shielding the corrupt including her family connections as chief minister. It was on their insist and in order to calm things down in the party that Ms. Mufti asked its vice president and her maternal uncle Muhammad Sartaj Madni to quit.

Mr Ansari and some others had openly accused Mr Madni of corruption and misusing his position and family bond with Ms. Mufti to serve his own interests. She was also forced to sideline her brother Tassaduq Hussain who was a minister in the PDP-BJP government.

But Ms Mufti’s compliance could not stop Mr Ansari and his uncle Aabid Ansari and half a dozen other former lawmakers, ministers and senior leaders from quitting the PDP. Muzaffar Hussain Beigh, former deputy chief minister and senior-most PDP leader had also publicly said that he might join the “third front” Sajad Gani Lone of the Peoples’ Conference (PC) was striving hard to form to provide a “credible alternative” in J&K’s mainstream politics. Mr Beigh had said that he was speaking his “heart out” and complained that the voice of the party cadres was being ignored by the PDP leadership.

Ms Mufti, however, succeeded in persuading him to abandon his plan and made him the party patron, the post held by her father Mufti Muhammad Sayeed till his death in January 2016.

The PDP loyalists term quitting of the party by these leaders and activists as ‘share opportunism’. Mr. Veeri is quite confident of the party getting out of the crisis “smoothly and graciously.”

He told this newspaper, “This too shall pass. With dedicated party workers and tens of thousands of our supporters we will continue to be strong enough to meet our party’s objectives and carry our mission as well our vision and values forward.”

But Kashmir watchers say that recovering from seemingly crushed dream of her father won’t be an easy task for Ms Mufti and her party loyalists in coming months.

Most of those who quit the PDP during past few weeks have joined National Conference or Peoples’ Conference. Former lawmaker and Awami Itehad Party (AIP) leader Engineer Rashid sees changing of loyalties by leaders and activists of the PDP and some other parties as something which is “polluting the spectrum of politics” in Jammu and Kashmir. But then ‘politics is all about interest’ and J&K is no exception.