SRINAGAR: Kashmir’s main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has justified the separatists’ call for boycott of elections.
“Dissent is the essence of democracy and separatists have a right to dissent. They have a right to call for a boycott (of polls), but people have to think what is right for them,” PDP patron, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed said at a function to welcome trade union leader, Khursheed Alam into his party.
But Sayeed said there was also a need to engage the separatist politicians in a dialogue to find ways to address the Kashmir issue.
“To put them in jail is not a way,” he said.
“Democracy is a battle of ideas. We have to fight the separatists politically.”
Mufti Sayeed said he believed the solution to the issue of Kashmir lay “within the four walls of the Constitution”.
Sayeed, who has been the state’s former chief minister in coalition with the Congress party, said his party will play a positive role in the issue of the disputed region.
“PDP is the only force, which thinks positively and only it can pull out the state from the prevailing situation of uncertainty,” he said.
