New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference chairperson Sajad Lone on Tuesday announced his party’s exit from the seven-party conglomerate People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD).In a letter addressed to PAGD head and National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, Lone said there has “been a breach of trust among partners” which is “beyond remedy.”In the three-page letter, Lone has said that some constituents of the grouping had fielded proxy candidates in the district development council (DDC) elections, which reportedly led to a sizeable dent in the PAGD’s vote share.In late November, 2020, Kaisar Andrabi had reported for The Wire on this phenomenon of the three leading parties of the Gupkar Alliance fielding proxy candidates as ‘independents’ against each other. The report also finds People’s Conference members doing the same.“On the face of it, PAGD won these elections unambiguously having won the maximum number of seats. We can’t hide statistics and apart from the number of seats that PAGD won, other important statistical variable in the context of August 5 (reading down of Article 370) is the number of votes polled against the PAGD.”Also read: DDC Poll Results Prove BJP’s Claim of Ending NC-PDP Rule in Kashmir WrongHe said he believed that the votes polled against the PAGD are mostly those cast by proxies of PAGD constituent parties against official PAGD candidates.“This is certainly not the vote share that people of J and K deserved post August 5,” Lone said in the letter.Members of Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration Farooq Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti, Omar Abdullah and others during a press conference after their meeting, at Bathindi in Jammu, Saturday, November 7, 2020. Photo: PTIHe added that there was a marked dissonance between what the leaders of the PAGD were discussing at their meetings in Srinagar and the actions of their respective parties on the ground.This, he added, led to a situation where “those who perpetrated August 5 (the BJP at the Centre) and their minions are now vocally gleeful.”Lone has stressed that the People’s Conference is choosing to “divorce” from the alliance and not its objectives.“And the PAGD leadership should be assured that we will extend support on all issues which fall within the ambit of stated objectives. We have issued clear instructions to all party leaders not to issue any statements against the PAGD alliance or its leaders,” he wrote.
