Srinagar : A day after National Conference accused PDP-BJP coalition of ‘match fixing’ on the issue of rehabilitation of flood victims, Jammu and Kashmir Minister Altaf Bukhari on Wednesday hit back at the party, saying “it has always trivialised pain and woes of the people of Kashmir”.
“We do not need any political sermons from National Conference (NC) which remained totally indifferent and apathetic towards miseries and sufferings of the flood victims of Kashmir,” Bukhari, a senior leader of ruling PDP, said in a statement here. On Monday, Bukhari had reacted sharply to the reported remarks of senior BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh that Rs 3,600 crore are enough for the rehabilitation of flood victims.
Although Singh clarified later that he was misquoted, National Conference took a note of the issue and accused the ruling coalition of ‘match fixing’ on the rehabilitation of flood victims to hoodwink the people.
“As a fixed-match, a Cabinet Minister in the PDP-BJP government has opposed the Deputy Chief Minister’s statement and expressed shock. These theatrics cannot absolve the PDP-BJP Government of its unforgivable failure of ensuring the rehabilitation of thousands of flood victims,” NC working president and former chief minister Omar Abdullah had said. In response, Bukhari on Wednesday said, “National Conference regimes have always trivialised pain and woes of the people of Kashmir and unfortunately its leadership is yet to learn lessons from the results of its decades old politics of deceit and treachery.”
“Instead of making insensitive remarks, National Conference should have been doing some honest soul searching about how its government defectively responded to the September deluge,” he said, adding his party does not believe in “deceptive politics” and would always rise up to the occasion and speak bluntly in interest of the people of the state.
