Opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader Mehbooba Mufti said on Wednesday that the disclosures about former Army Chief Gen. V.K. Singh’s using secret funds to topple J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah-led coalition has not come as a surprise to people of the state. “It has only shaken whatever faith they had been able to retain in the democratic system of the country,” she said here on Wednesday.
Ms Mufti added, “These revelations might be sensational on their face but these are only a confirmation of what an ordinary citizen of the state always held as a belief that everything in the state is manoeuvred and remote controlled by powers outside the system.” She also said, “There are still many of us left who don’t fall into that category of trustworthy Indians but the way the issue has been projected paints everybody in one black colour.”
She asserted that the contents of the relevant report are an insult to the people of the state that they are sought to be engaged through dubious means, including bribing their representatives. “It seems we are not treated as people with aspirations or political preferences but a class whose loyalties can be purchased through money and political favours,” she said, adding “Instead of allowing democratic process and institutions to flourish as in other parts of the country we are told in 65th year of independence that it is the security establishment and their shady methods that run the place and keep it for the country. It comes as a shock that the establishment should treat only those people as worthy of the country’s trust that are on their pay roles or are receiving favours.”
She said: “The expose is of course sensational but more shocking is the response from various quarters in the country... No one in the discourse has disapproved of these methods or denied their existence but justified them in the national interest and are upset only on their becoming a public knowledge saying they are justified in national interest.”