Opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader Mehbooba Mufti has dubbed the ruling National Conference (NC) as a political deadwood and urged the people to weed it out which, she insisted, was in their interest.
Ms Mehbooba also urged them to look beyond the beaten political track and called for a reassessment of the role of traditional parties which, she asserted, monopolised power politics for decades.
“Parties like the NC established by grandfathers and dominated by sons and grandsons have outlived their utility and relevance and have been dumped by the people in states like West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and earlier in Bihar and UP,” he told a party rally in winter capital Jammu late Monday evening.
She insisted that the NC was a party of the past and people especially the youth should try out newer options on the basis of their programmes, agenda and performance and then claimed that her own party PDP was gaining acceptability only on the strength of its “forward looking agenda of peace and resolution and performance” during its brief stint in government “when we set new standards of governance.”
On the other hand, she charged, the NC was “getting squeezed out of political space”.