J&K: Key Gupkar Alliance Member Javaid Mir Joins Former PDP Colleagues at Apni Party

Srinagar: A former alliance partner of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), Javaid Mustafa Mir, on Monday joined the Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP) led by Altaf Bukhari, a critic of the grouping in Jammu and Kashmir.

“At times, you feel like switching to good organisations. I am at will to decide on my political decisions. The only endeavour should be that people should benefit from our efforts. I believe that’s the big thing,” Mir was quoted as saying after joining JKAP.

Mir, 52, was earlier a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and has served as a minister in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, including as Revenue Minister during the PDP and Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government between 2014-18. After the fall of the coalition government, however, Mir defected from PDP after more than 17 years. He joined the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples’ Movement (JKPM) as its first prominent politician since it was established by former IAS topper Shah Faesal in March 2019.

JKPM failed to take off as a party and Faesal quit politics less than a year after his announcement, leaving Mir as its key member at a time when the BJP-led central government abrogated Article 370 and 35A and bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories on August 5, 2019. Both Faesal and Mir participated in the PAGD’s first meeting, and Mir was amongst its first signatories who vowed to fight for the restoration of Article 370 that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The regional politics has since been caught up in complexity while local leaders and political activists are mostly changing parties and camps.

“I welcome Javaid Mustafa Mir into the party. His joining will help us in our mission of pulling the people out of the shock given to them on August 5, 2019,” Bukhari said during a presser in Srinagar.

Mir, whose father Mir Mustafa was assassinated by suspected militants in 1990, left JKPM a week ago. However, his joining Apni Party naturally distances the leader from the regional alliance wherein many considered Bukhari’s party as New Delhi’s “B-Team”, a reference that has been associated with both the PDP and the Natonal Conference earlier.

Mir, who accompanied Bukari during Monday’s presser, said that as long as he was with the alliance, he did his job there and the issue of Article 370 remains with the court, something that Bukhari has been claiming as the only route to defend it. Mir was the second key constituent of PAGD after People’s Conference leader Sajad Lone quit the alliance.

“Our mission is to restore the dignity, respectability and the honour of people, so that people feel what has been snatched from them was restored,” Bukhari said, adding that they are satisfied with the party’s efforts.

Apni Party was formed in March last year, and it draws most of its ranks from those who defected from the PDP, which has been abandoned by more than 20 members and leaders in the past two years.