SRINAGAR — Peoples Conference (PC) Chairman, Sajad Gani Lone on Thursday said all the leaders who participated in the recently held all party meeting in New Delhi on June 24, made their people proud.
Addressing a news conference, Lone, who was accompanied by Imran Raza Ansari and Basharat Bukhari said, the participants from Jammu and Kashmir in the All Party Meeting made their people proud and reflected their pain in befitting manner.
He said it obvious that those who will go to New Delhi to represent people can never disrespect the sentiments of people. “I would give equal marks to all those who participated and spoke in the meeting,” he said.
“As on date, there are no winners or losers. It is a long process. We have to ensure that New Delhi delivers and we have to make an enabling environment for them to deliver and that cannot be done by rhetoric. India is a land of elections. There is an election after every six or eight months. Let us not resort to rhetoric and create an environment where delivery becomes difficult. If delivery becomes difficult or delayed, there is only one loser and that is the people of J&K,” he said.
Lone said his party will strive to create an enabling environment to facilitate delivery mechanisms.
Asked about the assurances over restoration of Statehood after elections, Lone said, “I would say that the Statehood should be restored now. Not as a matter of charity, but as a matter of right, it should be restored now. I wouldn’t link elections with statehood,” he said.
He further said that he wouldn’t boycott the elections. “I will not say that I will myself boycott the elections and the party will contest. We all are equal. I am not more moral than them” he said, adding that boycotting polls could be a trap to scare parties and facilitate their own people to win elections .
“There is a need to understand that boycotting elections has yielded no results. We should look at the other side as well .Keeping away the opponents could be a trap,” he said.
Replying to a query, he said that the party will participate in the Delimitation exercise if it is invited, saying that the process has to be fair within the regions and across the regions.
Other PC leaders Abid Ansari, Peerzada Mansoor and Muhmmad Abbas were also present in the news conference. — (KNO)