Handed a second chance, Waheed Parra builds Pulwama campaign around ‘healing J&K’s pain’

SRINAGAR: “Before we listen to you, you have to listen to us,” 42-year-old Muzaffar Ahmad Magray tells Waheed ur Rehman Parra as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for Pulwama Assembly seat alights from his vehicle on a campaign stop.

It is a cloudy morning in the village of Renzipora village in Pulwama’s Awantipora tehsil. Magray brings up PDP founder Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s vision that “brought an AIIMS and a university to Pulwama”, but speaks in disapproval of the PDP’s alliance with the BJP following the 2014 elections. He then asks Parra a few pointed questions. “What will you do for Pulwama and how will you be different from the past MLAs?” he asks.

The PDP leader who lost the recent Lok Sabha elections from Srinagar to the National Conference’s (NC) Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi goes on to spell out his vision for the constituency, which is one of the Assembly segments of the parliamentary seat. Parra talks about upgrading roads, infrastructure development, free power, and job creation. “But then there is another aspect,” he tells Magray and the villagers who have gathered. “That is the question of our dispossession and our identity,” he says, bringing up his prison stint, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), and the Public Safety Act (PSA). The 36-year-old PDP leader’s words seem to strike a chord as Magray comes up to hug him and urges him to remember his words after he is elected.

With the clamour, blaring loudspeakers and motorcades, surrounding an election missing, Parra has focussed on door-to-door campaigns and claims that in the past two weeks, he has visited 49 of the 67 villages under his constituency. “We are trying to reach every village and individual. We do not do big rallies or roadshows. Finances are an issue,” he adds.

In Pulwama, Parra faces a challenge from someone he has known and campaigned for in the past. Khalil Ahmad Bandh of the NC won the seat in 2014 as a PDP candidate and switched to the NC after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019.

“It is a challenging situation but our politics is different as we speak about the pain and anxiety of people and youth. Everyone talks about governance. We too do it but we also seek healing. We speak about the larger political process and stakeholders,” Parra says.

The fight for Pulwama, which goes to the polls in the first phase on September 18, will, in all probability, be a direct contest between the former colleagues who are seen to be accessible and rooted to the ground even as 12 candidates are in the fray. The only other candidate generating interest among the people is Independent Dr Talat Majeed, who is backed by the banned Jamaat-e-Islami. However, the Jamaat is a divided house and there is a disconnect between its new temporary leadership — now an eight-member panel that decided to take the electoral plunge and is in talks with the Centre seeking the lifting of the ban — and the ground cadre.

“Who is the Jamaat candidate? He (Majeed) joined the Apni Party last year. We do not accept them (the Jamaat’s panel),” a retired school headmaster, who was formerly associated with the Jamaat, says in the neighbouring village of Khandaypora.

The headmaster takes centre stage as Parra begins his interaction with the villagers. He speaks of the “betrayals” by NC founder Sheikh Abdullah, the 1975 Sheikh-Indira Accord, and how NC vice-president Farooq Abdullah “came to the Centre’s rescue in 1996”. While his words draw applause, a few village leaders appear uncomfortable. “He is politically incorrect, it will create problems,” murmurs one of them.

The Jamaat has traditionally supported PDP candidates in the past two decades and Parra seems to be aware of its impact on the electoral outcome. “We are not against the Jamaat but let it contest under its banner. We will support them,” a local PDP leader tells the gathering.

An oft-discussed topic among PDP supporters in Pulwama is the party’s alliance with the BJP in 2014. “That was a blunder and it has cost us a lot. Had we not been with the BJP, our party would be the only force to reckon with in the Valley,” says one of them in Bhaderwan village.

Parra too realises it and says the PDP is open to alliances with secular forces. Asked if it means that the doors are open for the BJP too, he emphasises: “No, only for secular forces.”

The “blunder” aside, people in Pulwama also talk about Mufti’s rule between 2002 and 2005, referring to it as a “golden period”. The PDP candidate looks to tap into it and tells them, “You were confined to your homes while an outsider was asking you to identify yourself. We disbanded the task force, ended the Ikhwan culture, initiated dialogue and opened (cross-border) roads.”

As the gathering breaks into applause, Parra, in an apparent reference to his NC opponent, emphasises the need for “a strong voice in a weak Assembly”. (The Indian Express)