SRINAGAR/ANANTNAG: This election, Kashmir is an alphabet soup, and including to the standard PDP/NC binary are AIP, AP, JEI, DPAP. The ever-present chatter in the course of this muddle is the conspiracy idea concerning the “invisible hand of Delhi”. And on the centre of those intrigues sits Engineer Rashid of Awami Ittehad Occasion.
Jailed for over 5 years from the place he gained the 2024 Lok Sabha election however bailed out simply within the nick of time to marketing campaign for meeting polls, Rashid is a maverick who has roiled Kashmir politics like few have previously.To his backers, he’s the person who didn’t bend to Modi’s will, however to others that features the Abdullahs and the Muftis, he’s the proxy despatched by BJP to break the Kashmiri regional events and scramble the board. Kashmir is wracking its mind over who’s Engineer and what he’ll handle. His harm potential might be a key story of the Kashmir end result on October 8.
Amid the hullabaloo, the scrawny visage that hides a shrill tone and sharp tongue shoots a mischievous half grin and fires again at TOI, “I used to be put in Tihar on August 9, 2019, after the revocation of statehood, and remained there until September 11, 2024. However they (Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti, Farooq, Sajjad Lone) had been handled as VVIP visitors in five-star motels. It’s unusual they’re accusing me of being the Centre’s pawn.”
That’s the rebuttal Rashid recites advert nauseum, his calling card positioning himself because the untainted one. However Kashmir is agog with why Rashid, not bailed for preventing the LS polls and to later attend Parliament, was out of the blue “let unfastened” to marketing campaign. The idea is that Engineer, together with his native attraction on delicate points that focus on PM Modi, will wean away voters from NC-Congress and PDP who’re vowing arm’s size from BJP, and create a extra pleasant post-poll tally for BJP. The menace has alarmed the mainstream.
Engineer laughs at this. “I defeated Omar from jail in Baramulla LS polls by over two lakh votes, and Mehbooba misplaced closely in Anantnag. And they’re calling me vote-cutters. It’s a distinctive case.”
But, a veteran observer of native politics, not wishing to be named, gave an alternate view: Jail generated sympathy for Engineer within the LS polls and bail has generated suspicions within the meeting contest. “He might not do as a lot hurt as is being speculated,” he estimates.
Engineer claimed the propaganda by Omar and Mehbooba will solely profit him. “Yeh jo public hai, sab jaanti hai (Folks know every part). I’m in jail for five.5 years and traitors, puppets, rubber stamps of New Delhi are accusing me. Folks comprehend it.”
Apart from the bail, there are questions concerning the well-funded marketing campaign of AIP’s 34 candidates, its sudden alliance with the banned Jamaat-e-Islami that stunned all by, out of the blue, deciding to contest the polls backing and fielding Independents. Kashmir is especially liable to doubts about “Delhi’s hand” as a result of PDP defector Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Occasion and later Ghulam Nabi Azad’s DPAP might by no means shrug off the tag of being BJP’s proxies. With the 2 seen as having failed to grasp their “potential”, Engineer’s election-eve bail helped the mainstream gamers to stoke the fireplace that AIP is BJP’s closing play.
However the AIP chief is obvious in his thoughts. “I do not wish to belittle myself by responding to their accusations,” he mentioned.
Jailed for over 5 years from the place he gained the 2024 Lok Sabha election however bailed out simply within the nick of time to marketing campaign for meeting polls, Rashid is a maverick who has roiled Kashmir politics like few have previously.To his backers, he’s the person who didn’t bend to Modi’s will, however to others that features the Abdullahs and the Muftis, he’s the proxy despatched by BJP to break the Kashmiri regional events and scramble the board. Kashmir is wracking its mind over who’s Engineer and what he’ll handle. His harm potential might be a key story of the Kashmir end result on October 8.
Amid the hullabaloo, the scrawny visage that hides a shrill tone and sharp tongue shoots a mischievous half grin and fires again at TOI, “I used to be put in Tihar on August 9, 2019, after the revocation of statehood, and remained there until September 11, 2024. However they (Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti, Farooq, Sajjad Lone) had been handled as VVIP visitors in five-star motels. It’s unusual they’re accusing me of being the Centre’s pawn.”
That’s the rebuttal Rashid recites advert nauseum, his calling card positioning himself because the untainted one. However Kashmir is agog with why Rashid, not bailed for preventing the LS polls and to later attend Parliament, was out of the blue “let unfastened” to marketing campaign. The idea is that Engineer, together with his native attraction on delicate points that focus on PM Modi, will wean away voters from NC-Congress and PDP who’re vowing arm’s size from BJP, and create a extra pleasant post-poll tally for BJP. The menace has alarmed the mainstream.
Engineer laughs at this. “I defeated Omar from jail in Baramulla LS polls by over two lakh votes, and Mehbooba misplaced closely in Anantnag. And they’re calling me vote-cutters. It’s a distinctive case.”
But, a veteran observer of native politics, not wishing to be named, gave an alternate view: Jail generated sympathy for Engineer within the LS polls and bail has generated suspicions within the meeting contest. “He might not do as a lot hurt as is being speculated,” he estimates.
Engineer claimed the propaganda by Omar and Mehbooba will solely profit him. “Yeh jo public hai, sab jaanti hai (Folks know every part). I’m in jail for five.5 years and traitors, puppets, rubber stamps of New Delhi are accusing me. Folks comprehend it.”
Apart from the bail, there are questions concerning the well-funded marketing campaign of AIP’s 34 candidates, its sudden alliance with the banned Jamaat-e-Islami that stunned all by, out of the blue, deciding to contest the polls backing and fielding Independents. Kashmir is especially liable to doubts about “Delhi’s hand” as a result of PDP defector Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Occasion and later Ghulam Nabi Azad’s DPAP might by no means shrug off the tag of being BJP’s proxies. With the 2 seen as having failed to grasp their “potential”, Engineer’s election-eve bail helped the mainstream gamers to stoke the fireplace that AIP is BJP’s closing play.
However the AIP chief is obvious in his thoughts. “I do not wish to belittle myself by responding to their accusations,” he mentioned.
