Issue Brief on “The First Political Dissent in Indian Occupied Kashmir”

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On September 9, 2016, the former Deputy Chief Minister, Muzaffar Husain Baig from the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK), spilled out his dissent in the open against the faltering government of Mehbooba Mufti. PDP is in alliance with the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). According to Baig, “We have not been able to deliver at the ground level according to the agenda of governance, which makes the cadre of the party disgruntled.” Baig, a senior party leader of PDP and a Lok Sabha MP from Baramullah asserted on the resignation of Mehbooba. Similarly, Tariq Hamid Karra, the General Secretary and a founding member of the PDP, while submitting his resignation on September 15, 2016, referred to PDP-BJP coalition as an “unnatural alliance”. He termed the turnaround in Mehbooba’s policies, contrary to the wishes of the people of Kashmir, as much worse treatment of her people than the Nazi forces of the Jews in Germany. “I feel still continuing with them would be equally subscribing to their administratively inhuman and politically unethical blunders,” said Karra while addressing media persons at his Shivpora residence to announce his resignation.

In 2015, Baig along with Tariq Hamid, had refused to attend the meeting called by PDP President, Mehbooba Mufti, to get a feedback from all party office-bearers on the performance of the government and alliance with the completely ideologically divergent BJP. The meeting was held amidst the resentful ties between the two.

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