Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (AP) founder-president and former state finance minister Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari made it clear at a big political rally in Srinagar on Saturday that none of the Union Territory’s leaders or parties could retrieve the erstwhile State’s special status.

He said that only the Supreme Court of India could restore what had been taken away in the year 2019.

“We will engage the country’s best lawyers and pay them a fee in crores of rupees. We will leave no stone unturned to get back Article 370 and 35-A. But the case has to be decided only by the Supreme Court. The politicians who are telling you that they would get the special status back are simply misleading you. Same politicians made this promise while fighting the District Development Council elections two years back. Did they get it?” Bukhari questioned while addressing the gathering

With participation from Srinagar as well as all the nine rural districts, Bukhari’s public rally was the first of its kind after abrogation of Article 370, and reorganisation of the erstwhile State into separate UTs of J&K and Ladakh in August 2019.

The rally was held at the fortified Sher-e-Kashmir International Cricket Stadium at Sonwar Bagh.

This was the second well-attended mainstream political rally across the Kashmir valley more than three years after the Union Home Minister’s massive public meeting at Baramulla on October 5, this year.

By post-2019 Kashmir standards, it was a massive gathering.

Bukhari’s followers, party activists and leaders gathered near his residence at the historic Lalchowk and walked to Sonwar Bagh with many carrying the party banners on their motorcycles.

Groups of women and youths were seen dancing and singing songs in praise of their leader. This kind of mainstream political enthusiasm was last seen during the Assembly elections of 2015.

After the formation of the PDP-BJP, separatists and militants took over the scene completely and their largest demonstrations and violent attacks were seen in 2016-18. There was little enthusiasm in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019. Boycott from the National Conference (NC), PDP and CPI (M) marred the Panchayati Raj Institutions and the Urban Local Body elections in Kashmir subsequently.

In his speech at the rally on Saturday, Bukhari asserted that the fate of Jammu and Kashmir had been sealed with India by the political leadership of those days in 1947. “They had to make the decision. But they did it in favour of India. Nobody can change it”, Bukhari said. He suggested that promises of Azadi and Autonomy were nothing but the “politics of deceit”We but the “politics of deceit”

We have said good-bye to the politics of deceit. We have decided to tell our people the truth after we formed this party on 8 March 2020. We would not say anything that raises the passions of our people and sends our youths to graves. Two lakh Kashmiris have been buried in the graves since 1990. What’s the achievement?” Bukhari said.

He said that the AP’s politics would unequivocally unite the people of Kashmir with the people of Jammu. The Muslims with the Hindus. It would seek return and rehabilitation of the displaced Kashmiri Pandits and subscribe to the welfare State.

“This massive congregation is a message to the Government of India and to India’s Prime Minister and Home Minister that the Kashmiris now want Assembly elections, restoration of the well-promised Statehood and their own government.

This conveys to New Delhi that the Kashmiris want back their identity”, Bukhari said. He asserted that the UTs of J&K and Ladakh should be unified back into a State as it existed on 5 August 2019.

According to him, New Delhi had made the life of people of Kashmir miserable by arresting and lodging them in different jails of India. “Whether it is 15 August (Indian Independence Day), 26 January (Indian Republic Day) or a cricket match (between India and Pakistan), our youths are being detained in droves and thrown into jails”, Bukhari added. “What kind of politics, freedom and democracy is this?”

The AP President said that his party had constituted different delegations for visiting different Indian jails and getting the Kashmiri detainees released. “Our youths have to be given a chance to enter the national mainstream. Wounds have been inflicted on us forcibly by the Government of India. I know that we cannot heal it but we will definitely apply some kind of a balm,” Bukhari said.

He said that if the people of Jammu and Kashmir vote his party to power in the Assembly elections, his government would provide best possible avenues of employment to the educated youths. He said that the “monopoly of outsiders” on J&K’s mineral resources would be terminated, the old age pension would be raised from Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 a month and 500 units of electricity would be provided free to the consumers—during winter in Kashmir and during summer in Jammu.