Political parties in J&K come together to form People’s Alliance to launch a constitutional battle against centre

Last updated on February 20th, 2023 at 01:08 pm

In order to form a united front against the BJP-led central government, seven parties of Jammu and Kashmir formed People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration, giving a formal structure to their union. The key agenda of this common alliance was to launch a “constitutional battle” for restoring the rights of people, full statehood and reclaiming the special constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir, which it enjoyed till Aug 4, 2019.

The alliance includes National Conference (NC), People’s Democratic Party (PDP), People’s Conference, Awami National Conference, the J&K Peoples Movement, and CPI (M), the Awami Ittehad Party and the Peoples Democratic Front. Besides, Congress and CPI have also extended its support to the alliance. In one of its kind coalition, rival political parties came together to collectively criticise and push back BJP’s reckless politics and Centre’s iron fist rule in J&K. Many observers believed that it was no electoral alliance, but a political coalition for the status of Kashmir. But many analyst believed that the biggest challenge for the alliance would be to reach a consensus on their joint strategy.

The alliance was formed on August 4 last year, a day before the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, and took a formal structure almost a year later on October 22. The signatories of ‘People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration’ pledged to “defend identity, autonomy and special status” of Jammu and Kashmir. The alliance was named so after its place of origin as all the leaders met for the formation of coalition at the residence of Farooq Abdullah at Gupkar Road in Srinagar.

Last week, the leaders came together for a meeting at the residence of National Conference president, MP and former CM Farooq Abdullah. The meeting was convened soon after the release of PDP chief and former CM Mehbooba Mufti (on October 13). Besides Mufti, the meeting was attended by Farooq Abdullah, National Conference vice-president and former CM Omar Abdullah, People’s Conference leader Sajad Lone, CPM leader M Y Tarigami and Awami National Conference’s Muzaffar Shah, among other leaders.

A similar meeting was organised on Thursday, with an aim to create a platform to complete with Centre and send it a clear message to the government of India, pressurising it return to the people of the (erstwhile) state the rights they had before 5th of August 2019. The CPI(M)’s Tarigami said “discussion are taking place and details of how the alliance fights the constitutional changes of August 5 will be thrashed out in the next meeting”

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