Hours after announcing its meeting with party president Mehbooba Mufti, who is currently under detention in Srinagar, Peopls’s Democartic Party (PDP) has deferred the scheduled meeting of its delegation.
However, no reason was given for the development which came on a day when a 15-member delegation of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference from Jammu met their detained party president Farooq Abdullah and vice president Omar Abdullah in Srinagar.
“PDP Jammu has decided to defer the scheduled visit of its delegation to Srinagar to meet the party president Mehbooba tomorrow (Monday),” former PDP legislator and spokesperson Firdous Tak told PTI on Sunday night.
He, however, did not give any reason for the sudden decision which came barely hours after the party announced that the state administration has given a permission to a delegation of the party from Jammu to meet the party president and former chief minister.
Sources within the party, however, said the visit has been deferred because of lack of unanimity on the composition of the delegation. The visit has been deferred following the rift within the party over the composition of the delegation, they said.
Another PDP leader, who did not wish to be named, said the party will meet shortly to decide the new schedule. “The visit has only been deferred and not cancelled,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Tak said the Peoples Democratic Party delegation will be led by General Secretary Ved Mahajan. The visit, if materialised, would have been the first meeting of PDP leaders from Jammu province with Mufti who was detained on August 5, the day the Centre announced abrogation of Article 370.
Tak said the PDP had requested Governor Satya Pal Malik to allow a party delegation from Jammu to meet Mufti and “we have been conveyed that the permission has been granted”.
The PDP leaders met twice in the day after the restrictions were lifted on party leaders recently and had decided to approach the governor to seek permission to visit the detained leader, the spokesman said. The NC delegation discussed developments in the state and upcoming local body polls during the separate meetings with the two leaders. The Jammu and Kashmir government had given permission to the delegation to meet the leaders.
With the Jammu and Kashmir administration announcing Block Development Council polls which will take place on October 24, almost all political leaders of Jammu have been freed from house arrest nearly after two months of detention.
However, their counterparts in the Kashmir Valley including NCP’s Omar Abdullah and Farooq Abdullah, PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti, J&K People’s Conference’s Sajjad Gani Lone still remain under preventive detention.
Almost all leaders from the National Conference (NC), Congress and Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) in Jammu have been freed from their detention, reports said.
Chief Electoral Officer Shailendra Kumar said the elections will be held will be held from 9 am to 1 pm on October 24, and votes will be counted from 3 pm. Elections will be held in 310 of 316 blocks in the state, a week before Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh are notified as Union Territories.
26,629 elected Panchs and Sarpanchs will elect 310 Block Development Chairpersons in the first phase. This will be followed by polls for 22 District Level Chairpersons for the District Development Boards.
The recent announcement is seen as a move to create a new set of grass-root level leaders since most of the local leaders including former chief ministers have been detained following abrogation of Article 370.