Fissures have emerged in the six-party People’s Alliance For Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), which seeks the restoration of Article 370 as well as statehood for Jammu and Kashmir after the Sajad Gani Lone-led People’s Conference today announced they were pulling out from the alliance.
With Lone's exit, the PAGD faces a setback, putting pressure on the alliance and potentially helping the BJP wean smaller parties out of it. PAGD had taken a tough stand against the BJP's decision to revoke Article 370, backed by NC president and former chief minister Farooq Abdullah and former chief minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti.
The seven-party alliance comprised NC, PDP, PC, JK Awami National Conference, CMI(M), Peoples Movement, and Awami Ittehad.
On August 4, 2019, the leaders of the six parties had met at Abdullah’s residence and passed a declaration, a resolution, in support of restoring Article 370. The resolution was named the Gupkar Declaration.
Last October, the GAPD made Farooq Abdullah president, Mehbooba Mufti Vice President and Lone its spokesman.
The PAGD contested the DDC elections in November-December last year jointly against the BJP and other smaller parties and won 110 seats in Jammu and Kashmir.
Lone announced his decision to quit the alliance in a letter addressed to Farooq Abdullah, saying the decision was taken by the highest decision making body of the PC.
“I am writing to you in reference to the recently held DDC elections and a spate of statements issued by leaders belonging to our party. The recurring theme of the statements was the fielding of proxy candidates by constituent parties against the officially mandated candidates of the PAGD,” Lone said in the letter.
“We convened a meeting of our leaders yesterday and deliberated on the issue in detail. The predominant feeling in the meeting was that the PAGD sentiment at the top was not emulated on the ground. It was felt that the results of a sincere alliance should have meant that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
He said that instead, “the whole was not greater than the sum of parts, sadly not even equal to the sum of parts, but much lesser and equal to just one part of the many parts.”
“The sad reality that emerges is that in majority of the places the party fielding the candidate on behalf of PAGD was left to fend for itself and secured the votes that his party managed.’’
“In most places, other parties were silent bystanders or worst compounded the problem by fielding proxy candidates,’’ he said.
He said the DDC elections per se may not matter institutionally but these elections were distinctive by virtue of the timing. “Firstly, the context of these DDC elections was politically very important,’’ the PC chief said. “It was the first election post-August 5. And secondly, it was a combined show of strength of a majority of the J&K political mainstream. It was less of an election, more of an opportunity to send a strong unanimous political message.’’
He said on the face of it, the PAGD won these elections unambiguously having won the maximum number of seats.
“We can’t hide statistics and apart from the number of seats that PAGD won," he said, adding that another important statistical variable in the context of August 5 is the number of votes polled against the PAGD.
“We believe that the votes polled against the PAGD are majorly the votes cast by proxies of PAGD constituent parties against official PAGD candidates,’’ it said. “And the net outcome of selectively voting for and against PAGD is a very poor vote share.”
He said this is certainly not the vote share that people of J&K deserved post-August 5.
He said in Srinagar the alliance looked at the statistics but out there on the ground people look at ‘our actions and our intentions’.
“They are eyewitnesses to our actions,’’ it said. “They are the actors in the political theatre scripted by us.”
He said people know that blinded by political greed, the alliance members fielded candidates against each other and the question they are asking, “if we can’t trust the PAGD leadership on something as basic as a DDC seat how can we trust them for larger issues.”
“We might have inflicted irreversible damage on to ourselves and on to the very people that we are supposed to represent,’’ he said. “Trust between allying partners who have been rivals all along can be very elusive and extremely fragile. proxies have made it perpetually elusive.”
He said the alliance needed sacrifice. Every party had to sacrifice on the ground in terms of giving space to fellow allies but no party is willing to cede space, no party is willing to sacrifice.
Lone said the PAGD members fought against each other in Kashmir province and not against the perpetrators of August 5. “And those who perpetrated August 5 and their minions are now vocally gleeful,’’ it said.
He said there has been a breach of trust between partners which his party believes is beyond remedy.
“The majoritarian view in our party is that we should pull out of the alliance in an amicable manner rather than waiting for things to get messier,’’ he said. “ I am confirming that we will no longer be a part of the PAGD alliance. “
Lone said they are divorcing from the alliance, not its objectives.
“We will continue to adhere to the objectives that we set out when this alliance was made,’’ he said.
He said the PAGD leadership should be assured that the People's Conference would extend support on all issues which fall within the ambit of the stated objectives.
