PDP’s four second-rung leaders resign in Jammu

Dinesh Manhotra 

Tribune News Service 

Jammu, September 18 

Within hours of issuance of a notification for the first phase of the urban local bodies elections, Jammu-based second-rung leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday raised a banner of revolt against the party leadership for boycotting the polls to ‘appease separatists and anti-national elements’. 

Young party leaders, who have been working to start their political career from the urban local bodies or panchayats, have been exploring other options since the PDP announced the poll boycott.

Gandhi Nagar zone president of the PDP Nitish Mahajan along with the zone committee members this morning resigned from the party. He charged the party leadership with ignoring the Jammu region and pursuing a separatist agenda to address the Kashmir-centric constituency.  “There is no reason for a mainstream party to sabotage the democratic process,” Mahajan said. He pointed out that the PDP leadership had been exposed by giving a boycott call.  “We were feeling suffocated in the party after the death of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed who was a visionary leader and a statesman,” he said. 

Sunny Sangral, a youth leader of the party, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 Assembly elections from the Samba segment, joined the Congress in the presence of former minister Raman Bhalla this evening. Earlier in the day, PDP’s prominent Scheduled Caste leader Raj Kumar Lalotra resigned from the party. He was the former member of the Advisory Board for Scheduled Castes. 

Another youth wing leader, Sachin Kumar, also quit the party on Tuesday. Sources said there was a strong resentment among Jammu-based leaders against the high command’s decision to boycott the elections because a large number of party activists were working in their respective areas since long to contest the local bodies elections.  “It is difficult for the party to keep its flock together in the Jammu region after the announcement of boycott call,” a senior PDP leader said. “Many leaders will quit the party in the coming days,” the party leader said.