Srinagar, July 11
J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s peace initiative suffered another setback on Sunday when Mehbooba Mufti turned down Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s request to re-consider the decision to boycott the all-party meeting, scheduled to be held on Monday to find a way out of the impasse in the valley. The absence of the main opposition party will rob the meeting of much of its legitimacy and authority.

The opposition PDP president had already declared that the all-party meeting would serve no purpose. Reacting sharply to the Chief Minister’s statement that by not attending she would choose to be ‘part of the problem’ rather than ‘part of the solution’, she had declared that she would speak only to the Prime Minister.

Both the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister, disclosed Mehbooba Mufti today, had spoken to her and advised her to attend the all-party meeting.

“I mustered courage to say that the PDP would not be able to attend the all party meeting”, she said here this afternoon. She told the Prime Minister that some initiative from the highest level was needed, adding, “we may be excused. But we are looking forward for a new hope”.

“I thanked the Prime Minister for showering love and affection to me”, she said. But while she had the highest regard and respect for the PM, she strongly felt that the state government and the CM had lost their credibility and an ‘intervention from the highest quarter’ was required to broker a solution.

The State government was trying to “hide its failures” by suppressing the anguish and anger of the people, she added. She held that the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was engaged in a “damage control exercise” giving out the impression through TV channels that he was ‘the only nationalist’. The “ground zero situation” in Kashmir was forgotten.

The sudden decision to hold an all party meeting, she reiterated, would serve no purpose.