Lok Sabha, J&K polls would be ‘Waterloo’ for NC, says PDP

Terming the 2014 Lok Sabha elections as a trailer for the assembly polls in the state to be held later in that year, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday said the polls would mark the ‘Waterloo’ phase for National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir.

Addressing meetings at Gajansoo area in Marh, PDP candidate leader and MLC Yash Pal Sharma said this was evident from the response of the people. ‘The Lok Sabha elections is a trailer for the assembly polls. Jammu and Kashmir would get rid from the yoke of National Conference after 2014 Assembly elections,’ he said. ‘The response we are receiving from the people during our campaign is a clear indication that Jammu and Kashmir would be free from National Conference,’ he said and attacked NC over corruption and divisive politics.

‘The coming Lok Sabha and assembly elections would prove to be a ‘Waterloo’ for National Conference because leadership of this party is exposed before the masses,’ he said. He accused the NC leadership of becoming thick-skinned and regretted that the government was not interested in the welfare of the people while serving their own interests. ‘NC leaders have turned thick-skinned. They have turned arrogant. This arrogance and nepotism of NC leaders is eating into the state like termite,’ he said and predicted 2014 to be the year of PDP’s triumph.

Kotranka (J&K): Ruling National Conference on Thursday accused Opposition PDP of ‘trampling’ the identity of Jammu and Kashmir by clandestinely siding with the BJP which had raked up the Article 370 debate. ‘PDP is a spent force and in a fit of desperation and lust for power it has volunteered to be a partner in implementing Modi’s doctrine of trampling the special identity of J&K,’ Devender Singh Rana, Provincial President of NC, Jammu said on Thursday.

‘A party that has been shedding crocodile tears in Kashmir needs to answer its clandestine tie-up with BJP, whose role in persecuting minorities has been notorious,’ Rana said, addressing workers’ meetings at Kotranka and Palma in Darhal.