For Kashmir, Covid Started On August 5, 2019: Apni Party Chief

Apni Party chief Altaf Bukhari was referring to abrogation of Kashmir’s special status

Updated on: 15 December 2020 8:59 pm

Former PDP leader Altaf Bukhari, who this year formed a separate party, Apni Party, today said the BJP is equally responsible for the present situation of Jammu and Kashmir.

As the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration accused Apni Party of being the BJP’s B-team and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah even called it a king’s party, Bukhari said the BJP, Congress, National Conference and People’s Democratic Party were equally responsible for the present situation of Jammu and Kashmir. Bukhari was addressing a rally at the Sheri Kashmir Park in Srinagar.

Bukhari said the Kashmir issue and participation in the electoral process have nothing to do with each other. He said mainstream parties had created a narrative that participation in the voting is against “Kashmir issue and the Kashmir movement.”

“People have made it amply clear that the vote and the Kashmir movement have nothing to do with each other and that is the biggest success of this election,” he said. He said they were hoodwinking people that if they vote they would be treated as traitors. “But on the contrary vote is a solution to a lot of our issues and it has nothing to do with the basic issue,” Bukhari said.

However, it was separatist political parties which would call for a poll boycott. This time not a single separatist political party or a leader had given any such call. The PDP and National Conference boycotted the municipal elections in 2018 asking the Centre to give assurance first that it wouldn’t revoke Article 35A of the Constitution of India.

Bukhari, who was earlier with PDP and remained finance minister during the PDP-BJP government, formed the party in March this year and soon after the formation of the party, on March 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met a 24-member delegation led by Bukhari in New Delhi.

In an interactive session, the Prime Minister “engaged with the delegation on various issues like concerns on demographic changes, delimitation exercise and grant of state domicile.” During the meeting with the Prime Minister, Bukhari described August 5, 2019 as a watershed moment in the history of Jammu and Kashmir. On August 5, 2019, the BJP government revoked Article 370 and Article 35A of Constitution of India.

Defending his meeting with the Prime Minister in March, Bukhari said what is the problem in meeting the Prime Minister? “Should we go to the Prime Minister of London or Africa? Panacea of our pain lies in New Delhi," he added. However, he said if Covid-19 spread the whole world in March 2020, in Jammu and Kashmir, Covid-19 surfaced and spread on August 5, 2019. “I understand how it affected people,” he said.

Another senior leader of the party and former minister, Ghulam Hassan Mir, said whatever happened on August 5, 2019 will always pain our hearts. He said it resulted in an uncertainty here triggering fears of demographic change, unemployment, eviction from land and disempowerment. Apni Party emerged to represent people," Mir added.

However, Mir said in the meeting the Prime Minister has assured that there would be no demographic change in J&K in wake of the August 5, 2019 decision.

Bukahri said contrary to the People’s Alliance, his party didn’t amalgamate with any other political party. “They (Peoples Alliance) felt a challenge in us and that is why they formed a joint front,” he said.

Since the formation of Apni Party, Bukhari and other leaders of the party have been praising Ghulam Mohammad Bakshi, a former Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, who is widely seen as a “traitor” by Kashmiris. They call him their hero.

Historically, Kashmiri political parties, especially the National Conference, see Bakshi as the one who betrayed Sheikh Abdullah, the first Prime Minister of the state. Bakshi served as the deputy prime minister between 1947 and 1953 when Sheikh was the PM. After the arrest of Abdullah on August 9, 1953, Bakshi took over as Prime Minister, a post he held till 1964; during this period Sheikh was in jail. Bakshi was the longest-serving PM of the state and it was during his rule that the state’s accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India was ratified.