PDP hits back at NC over Article 370, cites ‘deals with BJP’ | India News

Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti

SRINAGAR/JAMMU: Peoples Democratic Party hit back Thursday at National Conference (NC) for blaming it over the abrogation of Article 370, accusing the latter of striking secret deals with BJP while defending PDP’s alliance with the saffron party as open and principled.
The row erupted after former RAW chief AS Dulat claimed in his book “The Chief Minister and the Spy” that NC president Farooq Abdullah secretly supported the revocation of Article 370 in 2019, although he publicly denounced it as a betrayal.
J&K CM Omar Abdullah questioned PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti’s endorsement of Dulat’s forthcoming book, asking if she also accepts what the spymaster wrote about her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in an earlier work.
In his 2015 book “Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years”, Dulat wrote that Sayeed loved his whisky and was once nicknamed “Mufti Whisky”. The RAW ex-chief described Sayeed as a regular bridge player at Delhi Golf Club and recounted how he would always insist on “one small” more, even after a drink.
“If Mehbooba Mufti believes everything Dulat writes is true, then should we also consider what he wrote about her father in his first book as true?” Omar said in Jammu. He accused Dulat of distorting facts to boost book sales. “When we have friends like this, then we don’t need any enemies,” he said.
NC reiterated its stand that the PDP-BJP alliance laid the groundwork for the constitutional change in J&K. The coalition govt was formed on March 1, 2015, and BJP ended the alliance on June 19, 2018.
“Whatever has happened in J&K since 2019 is because of the PDP-BJP alliance,” NC spokesperson Tanvir Sadiq said, doubling down on the party’s narrative that has dominated its election campaigns since 2019.
Mehbooba countered that her party’s alliance with BJP was transparent and aimed at safeguarding Article 370. “Unlike NC’s history of betrayal and secret deals with Delhi since 1947, our alliance was open and based on a promise that Article 370 will be protected,” she said.
Dulat’s revelations underpin suspicions in J&K’s political circles over Abdullah, his son Omar, and NC MP Hasnain Masoodi meeting PM Narendra Modi in New Delhi days before the abrogation.
Mehbooba said Omar had approached Union home minister Amit Shah after the 2014 assembly elections to propose an NC-BJP alliance. “Many BJP politicians told us NC was ready to ally without any agenda while we were negotiating a formal agenda,” she said. “But my father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed insisted on a written agenda that preserved Article 370.”
The PDP-BJP agenda of alliance included a six-year freeze on Article 370 and a commitment to Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s “Insaaniyat, Kashmiriyat, Jamhooriyat” doctrine.
PDP’s Waheed Para backed the party’s chief, saying: “Ours was an alliance to bring India and Pakistan closer to save lives in J&K, while NC entered into deals with BJP.”