Mehbooba calls for lifting of ban on Jamaat

Srinagar, Aug 30: Calling democracy a "battle of ideas", PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti urged the government on Friday to lift the ban on the Jamaat-e-Islami to enable it to contest elections.

She also described as "regrettable" National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah's claim that the Jamaat-e-Islami once considered elections "haram (forbidden)" but now as "halal (permissible)".

The People's Democratic Party (PDP) president told reporters in Srinagar, "If the Jamaat-e-Islami wants to contest elections, it is a good thing. Democracy is a battle of ideas. The government should lift the ban on it. All its institutions and assets that the government has frozen and seized should be unfrozen and returned..

Hitting back at Abdullah over his comments about the Jamaat-e-Islami, the former chief minister said, "It is a regrettable statement. It has been a call of the National Conference that elections become 'halal' when it gets power and 'haram' when it loses power.

Abdullah on Tuesday said it was "better late than never" for leaders of the banned Jamaat-e-Islami leaders to participate in the assembly elections. "We were told that elections are 'haram' but now the elections have become 'halal. It is better late than never," he had told reporters at Pahalgam in Anantnag district.

"For 35 years, Jamaat-e-Islami followed a particular political ideology, which has changed now. It is good," he had said.

Reacting to Abdullah's statement, Mehbooba said the National Conference considered Jammu and Kashmir as its fiefdom and accused the party of starting the "haram-halal" debate.

"When (National Conference founder) Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah became prime minister, then elections were 'halal'; when he was dismissed, they became 'haram'. For 22 years, it talked about a plebiscite. In 1975, when Sheikh Abdullah became chief minister, they (elections) became 'halal' again," the PDP president added.

Noting that the Jamaat-e-Islami had contested elections before, Mehbooba asked, "(Separatist leader and late Hurriyat Conference chairman) Syed Ali Shah Geelani became a part of the election process much before. But who made the participation of the Jamaat-e-Islami or other parties, including the MUF (Muslim United Front), in the elections 'haram'?.

The former chief minister was referring to alleged rigging in the 1987 polls.

"In 1987, the National Conference committed irregularities in the elections because it did not want a third force to come forward. When the third force came forward in the shape of the MUF, it committed irregularities by which it shut the doors of elections for other parties forever," Mehbooba alleged.