Poll boycott will only help BJP win seats in Kashmir: PDP

Srinagar, Nov 19: The Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party today said the campaign for poll boycott would bring a "permanent political disaster" to the state as it will only help BJP win seats in Kashmir.

"Poll boycott being enforced by various quarters has only led to systemic disempowerment of the people and this time around the boycott could bring in a permanent political disaster to the state by facilitating BJP to manage seats in Kashmir...," senior PDP leader and MP Tariq Hameed Karra said.

Addressing election rallies in Dooru constituency in support of party candidate Farooq Indrabi, Karra urged the people to vote decisively in favour of PDP to prevent BJP from causing any harm to the special status of the state.

Karra held the Congress equally responsible for the "misdeeds" of the present coalition regime.

"Congress is equal partner with National Conference in promoting mis-governance, anarchy, corruption and repression during the past six years of the disastrous rule," he said.

Urging the youth to lead the movement for change, Karra said the people have suffered immensely under the present "anarchist dispensation" that has become a symbol of "political chaos and denial of justice".

Meanwhile, addressing a rally at Shadab Karewa in Shopian constituency of south Kashmir, PDP state secretary Zaffar Iqbal Manhas urged the people to vote in right earnest as the elections "are watershed in the history of the state".

He said people have to vote consciously in the coming polls and defeat the forces who are hell bent upon to "divide the state on communal and regional lines".

Manhas said the assembly polls are crucial this time in the backdrop of changing political scenario across the country. The PDP leader said his party is seeking the people's mandate to protect the state's distinctive and special status.

"PDP will at any cost thwart the nefarious designs of those elements that have a track record of being the sworn enemies of the special position Jammu and Kashmir enjoys in the constitution of India," he said, calling for a decisive mandate for his party.

He said the upcoming polls are a direct political battle between PDP and BJP and the people have to make a clear choice and defeat the forces who believe in "totalitarianism and communal politics".

PTI