The exit of the J&K Peoples Movement (JKPM) has reduced the People’s Alliance for the Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), an amalgam of parties fighting for the restoration of the pre-August 5, 2019 position of Jammu and Kashmir, to a four-party grouping.
However, with the National Conference (NC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) formalising an electoral alliance for the first ever Assembly polls in the Union Territory (UT), it will be a formidable political force to take on the BJP.
JKPM president Ghulam Mustafa quit the Gupkar alliance on Sunday. “The alliance is a mere electoral alliance of two traditional political parties to safeguard their political interests. It doesn’t have any road map or any clear cut plans to lead people out of uncertainties,” a JKPM spokesman said.
Seven political parties were associated with the grouping on August 4, 2019, a day ahead of the reading down of Article 370. Later, the Congress and the Sajad Lone-headed J&K Peoples Conference quit the amalgamation.
The Congress dissociated itself from the alliance immediately after statements made by the leaders of the NC and the PDP on Article 370 in 2019 made the party’s position uncomfortable outside J&K and was said to have a negative impact on the poll campaigns of the party then.
In 2021, Mr. Lone’s exit came as a major jolt for the alliance because he quit immediately after it won the highest 110 segments in the first-ever District Development Council polls. Mr. Lone accused the NC and the PDP of fielding proxy candidates during the DDC polls despite a poll alliance.
Besides the NC and the PDP, the two other parties in the alliance now are the CPI(M) and the Awani National Conference (ANC) led by Muzaffar Shah. NC president Farooq Abdullah on Monday said the alliance “will contest the elections together”. The announcement was welcomed by the PDP.
“The PAGD is trying even to give voice to those people who cannot otherwise express their views. We have no fight with the local parties. There is nothing left to fight over between ourselves but there is everything we have to fight for the people of J&K,” senior PDP leader Naeem Akhtar told The Hindu.
He said the decision already made public by PDP president Mehbooba Mufti and NC’s Dr. Abdullah and Omar Abdullah not to contest the Assembly polls under the title of a Union Territory (UT) showed that the alliance “has a bigger cause to plead for”.
Reacting to the criticism of local parties that the Gupkar alliance lacks a road map, Mr. Akhtar said, “Goals should be clear. Strategies and road maps evolve with the struggle. The first part of the road map is a joint democratic resistance. For that, all democratic forces have to get together and try to block the oppressor, which in this case happens to be the BJP. We need to resist the assault launched on J&K and its culture, character, identity, statehood and constitutional position,” Mr. Akhtar said.
He said J&K was a distinct part of India. “The Indian state, however, has let us down by taking away that distinctness,” he added.
Sources said the alliance will sit down for finer details of electoral alliance only after the Election Commission of India, which completed the delimitation process, announces the poll dates. It will be the first Assembly polls since J&K was split into two UTs.
