‘One nation, one election’ will undermine India’s federal structure: Mehbooba Mufti

Srinagar (The Uttam Hindu): Former J&K chief minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti said on Saturday that ‘one nation, one election’ would undermine the federal structure of the country.

Talking to reporters here, Mehbooba alleged that the NDA government at the Centre was destroying India’s Constitution day by day. “India is a federal country, which has a federal structure. By talking of 'one nation, one election', you are undermining that federal structure,” she said. “The NDA government talks of making a Viksit Bharat by 2047, but actually they are taking the country backwards. They talk of 2047, but they are rather moving backwards. After the country became independent, there was 'one nation, one election' in the early years. After that, there has been a distribution of power among regions and a federal structure was born. They want to take us back to the same dictatorship, which I think is very wrong,” Mehbooba added.

Addressing the PDP delegates at a meeting earlier on Saturday, Mehbooba Mufti said her party is undergoing a very difficult phase. She assured the party men that the PDP was actually created to face challenges. She said when her father formed the government with the BJP in 2014 that was for preserving the regional integrity of J&K. “When I asked my father why he had decided to form a coalition government with the BJP, Mufti Sahib told me... look here, we have just 28 seats, they have 26. If we want to protect the regional integrity of the state, we have to take the BJP along with us,” PDP chief further said.

She added that the PDP’s decision to form government with the BJP was for the larger interest of the people while for petty administrative issues, the present government has been calling on everyone in Delhi. “We never went to the BJP, they knocked at our door and you must not forget that we had formed the government with the BJP led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. “Vajpayeeji went to Pakistan, he had talks with the Hurriyat leaders, he was instrumental in improving relations with neighbours,” she said.

She accused the present J&K government of its inability to address basic issues like employment, electric power etc. “They are busy with petty administrative issues,” she alleged.