National Conference provincial president Devender Singh Rana on Monday said the PDP and BJP owe apology to the people of Jammu-Kashmir for compromising their interests and creating unprecedented political, economic and security impasse.
“Jammu and Kashmir is virtually at the crossroads of its history, as the two mandated parties kept personal interests above the larger interest of the people on every issue, be that development or governance, security or the political aspirations”, Rana said while addressing office bearers of the Provincial Committee and District Units of the Jammu Division.
He said the self-centric attitude of the two parties, which they themselves tagged as ‘North Pole’ and ‘South Pole’, became evident on day one of the stitching of their “unholy alliance” with a singular agenda of remaining in power.
“As a consequence the public interest became causality,” he said, adding that the helplessness being shown by PDP and the BJP after parting ways “is like sprinkling salt on the injuries of their electors”.
He said the defunct and immoral alliance has left a lesson for the people to take their decisions with caution and sagacity for which the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh are known.
Rana said the failed PDP-BJP experience has posed a big challenge for the National Conference to restore peoples’ faith in parliamentary democracy that has been hugely eroded by the two parties. He came down heavily on the duo for their political bankruptcy and immaturity, which they are demonstrating in immense measure by indulging in blames and counter blames.
The BJP is accusing the PDP of letting down Jammu and Ladakh and the latter is taking pride in highlighting dirty statistics of killing people in the Valley.
He said the emotive, divisive, communal and regional politics played by the erstwhile coalition partners has bruised the psyche of the people, who have been pushed to worse kind of polarisation.
“There is need for bridging the gap, which can be done by National Conference alone which believes in regional unity and communal amity,” he said while urging the functionaries to gear up grass root units to fill the political vacuum.