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PDP renews efforts to strengthen base

By Our Staff Reporter

Jammu Jan. 6. The ruling People's Democratic Party in Jammu and Kashmir is making serious efforts to build a strong political base in areas where it has had almost no presence so far. In the last few days, the PDP vice-president, Mehbooba Mufti, along with her party workers, has crisscrossed the entire Jammu region and held rallies.

In the recent elections to the State Assembly, the PDP won all the 16 seats from the Kashmir region but did not get a single seat in Jammu or Ladakh regions. And it became entirely dependant on the Congress, the Panther's Party and the independents to form a government.

The Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, was once elected from the RS Pura Assembly segment of the Jammu region on the Congress ticket in the 1980s. But in the three years of its existence, despite the efforts of Mr. Sayeed and his daughter, who directed their concentration on the Muslim-dominated districts of Rajouri, Poonch and Doda, the PDP failed to make any significant inroads into the region. In the 2002 elections, despite the National Conference's debacle elsewhere in the State, it won all the three seats in Poonch and two out of four seats in Rajouri.

Mehbooba Mufti roped in several former district level leaders of the National Conference belonging to the dominant Gujjar community in Rajouri and Poonch on Sunday. Welcoming them, she attacked the founder of the National Conference, Sheikh Abdullah. "It was due to the efforts of Sheikh Abdullah that the secular foundations of the State were laid down but Sheikh sahib was never clear in his stand on the accession of Jammu & Kashmir with the Indian Union... he repeatedly changed his stand on this emotive issue which resulted in the confused psyche of the people of Kashmir."

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