Faesal’s party to stay away from polls

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 23

The recently-launched Jammu and Kashmir Peoples’ Movement, headed by former IAS officer-turned-politician Shah Faesal, will not contest the upcoming Lok Sabha election.

Faesal, who launched the party in Srinagar on Sunday, said it was not the time for the party to contest the poll.

“We held many meetings of the core team and we have reached a conclusion that the party is in infancy and we have decided that at this stage we will not participate in the Lok Sabha poll,” Feasal said at a press conference here.

He said there were two main reasons for the decision. “First our party is new and at this time we want to focus on a public contact programme. We also want to disapprove the apprehensions that the party has been launched with the aim of boycotting or causing split in vote or electoral manipulation. By not participating in the poll, we want to answer those people who had such notions,” he said.

“Before jumping into the electoral politics, we will strengthen our party and we have a long way to go,” he said.

Faesal, who topped the UPSC’s civil services examination in 2010, had resigned from the job in January this year citing several reasons, including his “protest against the killings in Kashmir and lack of any sincere reach-out from the Central government.”