PDP President Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday said that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had “betrayed not only the PDP but also the poor people of Jammu and Kashmir” by rejecting a proposal aimed at protecting residential structures of low-income families built on state land decades ago.
Speaking to reporters, Mehbooba said the issue was not about the market value of land but about people’s homes. “If a poor family, having no other means, built a small house 20 or 25 years ago on a few marlas of grazing land, that was the matter we raised,” she said. “We were not talking about new encroachments or current land use, but about old settlements that go back two or three decades.”
She said that while her party had sought to protect such families, the move was opposed by Omar Abdullah. “The BJP called it ‘land jihad,’ and Omar Sahib repeated that phrase, implying that people of Kashmir and Jammu are land grabbers,” Mehbooba said. “A poor person struggling to save his roof after his house was demolished post-2019 is not a thief.”
The PDP chief said her party tried to support the proposal despite having limited strength in the Assembly. “We had only three votes. We offered them, saying—take our votes, just save the homes of the poor. But they refused. Now, what more could we do?” she said.
Mehbooba also spoke about the issue of daily wagers, saying it had been raised during her tenure as Chief Minister. “We had initiated steps for their regularization, and an order was issued, but the government fell before it could be implemented,” she said.
She added that daily wagers continue to struggle despite serving in essential departments for decades. “These are people who run our services in water supply, education, power, and health sectors. They were promised regularization, but those promises remain unfulfilled,” she said.
Mehbooba said that while Omar Abdullah claims he lacks authority to act, “when it came to our bill to protect land rights, he could have done something to reduce people’s fear and uncertainty. But he chose not to,” she said.(KNS).
