Srinagar, July 11: The People’s Democratic Party president, Ms Mehbooba Mufti, on Sunday threw a spanner in the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh’s first attempt to intervene in the Kashmir crisis by rejecting his appeal to attend Monday’s all-party meeting called by the Chief Minister, Mr Omar Abdullah.
“What will you discuss with a Chief Minister who publicly admits he has lost credibility? Let him reestablish it,” Ms Mufti told reporters. She added while she was grateful to the Prime Minister and Union home minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, for calling her up, her party’s decision to stay away from the meeting remained unchanged.
“It was painful for me to tell the Prime Minister that I can’t attend the meet because the state government was doing nothing on the ground. It did not think about taking anybody else into confidence before calling in the Army, and when the situation only worsened because of the government’s flawed decisions, he (CM) seeks to discuss the issue at an all-party meeting,” she said.
Dr Singh had called the PDP leader and urged her to attend the meeting.