Spotlight
New Delhi, 21 March 2020
Apni Party
THIRD FRONT IN KASHMIR?
By Sagarneel Sinha
In static mode for
the past eight months, finally there is a stir in Kashmir politics. Recently,
Altaf Bukhari, a former senior leader of the People’s Democratic Party, formed
his own party “Apni Party”. The party is banking on importing leaders of his
previous party and other mainstream parties of the Valley which include the National
Conference, Congress and JK People’s Movement, another new party formed last
year by former IAS officer Shah Faesal.
Kashmir valley for
the past two decades has been dominated by the two family-centric mainstream
parties -- NC of the Abdullahs and PDP of the Muftis. In between these years,
there have been attempts to form a viable third front but without any success.
Sajjad Lone, a separatist turned mainstream politician, tried to revive the
Jammu and Kashmir's People's Conference founded in the late 1970s by his father
Abdul Ghani Lone, separatist politician who was killed by pro-Pakistani
elements for refusing to accept the biddings of Pakistan in 2002. And last
year, ex-IAS officer Shah Faesal’s formation of People’s Movement attracted a
lot of attention. However, the party is presently lost in the wilderness and
remains only in paper, whereas Sajjad Lone’s party is mostly limited to Kupwara
district.
Amidst all this,
Bukhari came with his new party where most of the leaders strongly symbolise
the well-known English proverb “old wine in a new bottle”. Unlike Faesal,
Bukhari is a mature senior politician in the Valley who had also served as an
education minister and later as the finance minister in the previous PDP-BJP
government.
What is of keen
interest is that when almost all political leaders of Kashmir, including
pro-BJP Sajjad Lone, were put under detention by the Centre after abrogation of
Article 370 on 5th August last year, Bukhari was not on the list and wasn’t put
under any detention or house arrest. This has prompted many commentators to
call Bukhari as New Delhi’s appointee and his party as New Delhi’s party. These
allegations become stronger when the BJP too is seento welcome the formation of
Apni Party.
Bukhari is aware that
these allegations may have some negative impact on his party’s image in the Valley
and thus to dismiss these, though not quite easy, the senior politician has
decided to launch the party in Jammu, the region which is mostly now known as
BJP’s bastion. An indication that the leadership is seeking not to be tagged as
New Delhi’s party or even the B-Team of BJP, like others too.
However, when it
comes to Kashmir, there have been many B-Teams, engineered from New Delhi. The Congress
had tried this by managing splits in the National Conference -- prominent
examples being of Bakshi Gulam Mohammed and Gulam Muhammad Shah. However, the
most successful attempt was the creation of PDP in 1999 by former Congress
leader Mufti Mohammad Saeed, who was also in Jan Morcha and served as the Home Minister
in the VP Singh’s government. It is often said that the PDP was created with
New Delhi's support as an alternative to break the backbone of NC of the
Abdullahs — when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister.
However, separatism
encouraged by the top PDP leadership didn’t go down well with the Centre. As a
result, despite having many disputes, it is said that New Delhi, whether it is
under BJP or Congress, has often preferred Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar
Abdullah than Mufti and his daughter Mehbooba Mufti. Recently, former RAW Chief
A.S. Dulat in an interview to an online media house revealed that the present
BJP leadership initially tried to form an alliance with the NC after the 2014 Assembly
election results of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir State.
And though it somehow
didn't materialise, as perhaps Omar Abdullah wasn’t keen for the alliance, the
end result was the saffron party was left with no options but to form an
alliance with PDP. Not to forget that during Vajpayee’s era NC was an ally of
BJP and Omar was a Cabinet minister.
So, the big question
in this new push by New Delhi is whether the NC has been the most reliable
partner of the Centre for years? There is another side of the story. Separatism
has strengthened itself on the ground in the Valley. As a result, pro-New Delhi
NC, when out of power, has sometimes spoken in the same vein as those expressed
by Pakistan-backed separatists.
When it comes to
nationalism, the present BJP Modi-Amit Shah leadership follows a tough approach.
This can be seen in Bukhari’s language. He hasn’t criticised the abrogation of
Article 370 and instead focussed on present issues such as demand for
restoration of statehood, domicile law for Jammu and Kashmir, equitable
developments of both regions, dignified return of Kashmiri Pandits et al --
which generally don’t get objected to by the BJP.
Recently, an Apni Party
delegation met with Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, where the latter assured that
demographics of Kashmir won’t be changed, a major concern of Kashmiris post the
abrogation of Article 370. The delegation also demanded the lifting of house
arrest of both Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti.
It is also true that many
Kashmiris now are trying to adjust with the present situation, as they know
that Article 370 has gone forever. New Delhi under Modi-Shah team through
Bukahri’s Apni Party is trying to create another PDP as was done by
Vajpayee-Advani. The difference is that the present leadership wants to create
a party minus colours of Pakistan-backed separatism and the Apni Party, as of
now, has avoided the shades of separatism.
The Centre is trying
to cause a heavy damage to Mehbooba's party, most of the leaders of Apni Party,
including Bukhari himself, are from it and which already has lost its base due
to its alliance with the BJP. On the other side, this is also a move to keep the
pressure on pro-India cadre based NC, which undoubtedly still remains the most
popular mainstream party on the ground in Kashmir.
Nevertheless, the
road for Bukhari isn’t so easy. The Centre has released Farooq Abdullah so that
the Valley’s grand old party can resume politics. This perhaps is a signal from
New Delhi to Bukhari that it is still eager to do business with NC. And interestingly,
senior Abdullah hasn’t yet made any strong criticism against the Centre. So,
for Bukahri, who also admires Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal development model, has to
remain connected to the ground realities of Kashmir if he has to make his party
“apni” for Kashmiris, while also
maintaining friendly relations with New Delhi.
After all, the
indisputable truth is that Kashmir’s fate is forever connected with New Delhi and
not with Islamabad. It remains to be seen whether this third front will be
viable. Bukhari’s attempts can’t be dismissed lightly. ---INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
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