Srinagar: People’s Conference chairman Sajad Gani Lone Sunday said the PDP MLCs elected “with the support” of BharatiyaJanta Party, should resign if the PDP feels their “power-sharing pact” with the BJP was a “sin”.
“If the PDP is really peeved with the BJP and want to atone for its sins, then they should ask their MLCs to resign because they are part of a sin since they have been elected by the collective vote of the BJP and the PDP,” Sajad said on the sidelines of a function organised by the party to welcome former MLA Tangmarg Muhammad Abbas Wani into the party fold.
Sajad said there is no question of the PC entering into a pre-poll alliance with any party. “We have already made it clear that we will fight on all 87 seats,” he said.
He also lashed out at the NC and the PDP, saying “they are responsible for the bloodshed and the massacres carried out in Kashmir after the outbreak of armed conflict.”
Lone said the NC and the PDP are “hoodwinking” the people in the name of protecting interests of Kashmiris. “They were telling the people one month ago that they have joined hands for the protection of Article 35A. The case of Article 35A is yet to be heard by the Supreme Court but they have started abusing each other,” he said.
Welcoming Abbas into the party, Lone said that Abbas was a “victim of elitism” and the PDP never forgave him for winning election.
“If (In PDP) you are not an elite, you cannot become MLA. I am witness to the fact that how he was persecuted by his party ministers for winning the election,” he said.
Sajad said Abbas would get due respect and position in the party. “Ours is not a party of elites, it is a party of commoners. I assure him that we will walk shoulder to shoulder to bring change in the State,” he said.
In 2014 Assembly polls, Abbas had defeated chief of Democratic Party Nationalist Ghulam Hassan Mir.
Speaking on the occasion, Abbas said that MLAs were “ignored and humiliated” by the ministers during the PDP-led rule.
“I often raised the issues of discrimination with the MLAs on the floor of the Assembly. I even suggested to the MLAs that we should form a coordination committee for redress of grievances of the MLAs,” he said.
Abbas became the fourth former MLA to join PC after dissolution of the Assembly last month following PDP president Mehbooba Mufti and PC chief SajadGani Lone separately staked claims for forming government in the state.
Before Abbas’s entry , prominent Shia leader and minister in the previous PDP-led government Imran Raza Ansari, ex-MLA ZadibalAbid Ansari and ex- MLA Bakir Rizvi joined the party.