Ex-finance minister resigns from PDP in J&K

Srinagar: Former Jammu and Kashmir finance minister Haseeb A. Drabu on Thursday resigned from Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP).

Mr Drabu who played key role in cementing PDP’s alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2015 announced his resignation in a letter to the party president Mehbooba Mufti.

“Even though I have not been a dissident — you are aware I had resigned from the Cabinet, Assembly and party nearly two years ago which you didn’t accept — I have disengaged from the party affairs for quite some time now,” the letter said.

It added, “I didn’t precipitate the matter because I believe it is ethically and morally wrong to leave the party under whose aegis one has contested and won the seat in the legislative assembly. Now that it is over, I am hereby resigning from the J&K PDP.”

He said that he may not have enjoyed every moment of it, “but when I look back at it, it has been an enriching and enlightening association”.

Recalling his association with PDP patron and former chief minister late Mufti Muhammad Sayeed who brought him in the party, Mr Drabu said, “I just hope that when history judges Mufti sahib and his decision to ally with the BJP, it does so in the context and with the complexity that it deserves”.