Three more PDP leaders to quit party, join National Conference

Sources said two senior PDP leaders Peer Mohammad Hussain and Syed Basharat Bukhari were not happy with the functioning of party leadership and conveyed their disappointment.

SRINAGAR: The rebellion in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is not over as three senior party leaders are in talks with National Conference and are likely to join the party.

Sources said, Peer Mohammad Hussain and Syed Basharat Bukhari were not happy with the functioning of party leadership and conveyed their disappointment.

They said both Hussain and Basharat, who are also former ministers, have been holding talks with National Conference leaders to join the party. Both are likely to join the NC in presence of party president and MP Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah in Srinagar tomorrow.

Sources said PDP MLC Saif-ud-Din Bhat, who had also stayed away from party meetings, was also holding talks with NC to join the party. PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti has been struggling to keep her party intact after the fall of her coalition government with BJP in June this year.

Although she managed to prevent the party's founding member Muzaffar Hussain Baig from leaving the party, the dissent in the party is far from over. Hussain, a former PDP MLA from Shangus constituency in south Kashmir, was close to former PDP patron and chief minister late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and had served as minister in NC-Congress government headed by Mufti Sayeed.

Basharat, had joined the PDP in 2003. He was elected as PDP MLA from Sangrama constituency in north Kashmir in 2008 and 2014 Assembly elections and also served as minister in Mufti Sayeed and Mehbooba led-PDP coalition government with BJP. However, after the fall of PDP-BJP government, Basharat was keeping a distance from the party and did not attend the recent meeting of party leaders convened by Mehbooba.

Sources close to Basharat said that after feeling that he cannot win the election from PDP ticket from Sangrama constituency, he decided to join NC to bolster his chances of winning the Assembly election for third consecutive term.

Basharat is the brother of slain journalist and founding editor of Rising Kashmir Shujaat Bukhari. Shujaat along with two of his security guards was shot dead by militants in Press Colony, Srinagar in May this year.

Saif-ud-Din Bhat has unsuccessfully contested the 2014 Assembly elections from central Kashmir Budgam constituency on PDP ticket.

PDP vice president Abdul Rehman Veeri told The New Indian Express that both Hussain and Basharat have been expelled from the party for anti-party activities. He said both were engaged in anti-party activities and both were expelled today.

Veeri said another party leader Mehboob Iqbal has been divested of the post of party general secretary. "We are keeping watch on his activities. If he is found involved in anti-party activities, he too will be expelled," he said. So far, two PDP ex-ministers including Haseeb Drabu and Imran Ansari, two former MLAs--Abid Ansari and Abbas Wani, MLC Yasir Reshi and former IGP Crime Raja Aijaz Ali, who had unsuccessfully contested 2014 Assembly elections from Uri have resigned from PDP. Imran, his uncle Abid Ansari, Abbas and Reshi have joined BJP ally Sajjad Gani Lone's Peoples Conference. Aijaz Ali is also expected to join the Peoples Conference.

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