Lone on Tuesday announced his party’s exit from the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), citing “breach of trust” and saying some constituents of the seven-member grouping had fielded proxy candidates in the recent district development council (DDC) elections.
Reacting to the development, Gupta claimed that the formation of the PAGD was nothing but “marriage of convenience” between various political entities in the Valley to save their “sinking ships” as the BJP through its move of abrogating Article 370 has made their presence irrelevant.
“As the PAGD was an amalgam of parties having ideologies that are poles apart, even a novice in the political arena could foresee that the ‘castle’ viz PAGD made by opportunistic dynasts of the Valley has to fall sooner than later and exit of People’s Conference is just the beginning,” he said.
He said the era of exploiting people in the name of religion, region or communities has gone and those political parties which abused power in the last over 70 years by befooling masses have “no takers” left in J-K.
The PAGD swept the maiden DDC polls by winning 110 of the 280 seats, while the BJP emerged as the single largest party with 75 seats.
“Time has come when the political dynasties including the National Conference and the PDP will have to close their shops and depart as the BJP-led government has widened the vision of people and raised their aspirations by way of accomplishing extraordinary development despite facing number of bottlenecks and hardships that were created by the wrong and directionless policies of successive governments in J-K,” Gupta said.
He said the valley will soon see the “rise” of smaller political entities like the Apni Party and the People’s Conference as the lies of the National Conference and the PDP have been exposed on all fronts and the scope for trapping people once again has diminished to the extreme level leaving very little or no room for their sustenance.
“Sooner the PAGD will fall better it will be for the people of Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere as this alliance is purposeless as far as people’s interests are concerned. Albeit, its intactness is significant only for survival of a few political ‘sharks’ which have become redundant after BJP-government’s move on Article370,” he said.
The PAGD is an alliance of various Kashmir-centric mainstream parties, including the National Conference and the PDP, formed for the restoration of Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir.