Will go against tide if it suits people: Mehbooba

Srinagar, Feb 21 (IANS) PDP president Mehbooba Mufti on Sunday said she would not hesitate to go against the tide if it suited the interests of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

At a membership drive for the Peoples Democratic Party in Srinagar, Mehbooba Mufti said her father, late chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, was not the one to follow the beaten track and would not hesitate to go against the tide if it was in people's interest.

She said she would do the same if the situation so demanded.

"You should understand why he (Sayeed) created the PDP. He never used to tread the easy path, but would create (new) ways, however difficult, and when he used to step on that road, he would not look back.

"He would never make a U-turn. He would never say something was right one day and then say it was wrong the next day," she said.

Mehbooba Mufti said she has been hearing since the last one-and-half months, since her father died, that the chief ministerial chair was her father's inheritance for her and she should take it.

"The inheritance of my father is not the chair. Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's inheritance is so large than it cannot fit in the chair.

"His inheritance is courage, strength and the love for the people here which he always had in his heart. His inheritance is to tread those roads which nobody dared tread," she said.

The PDP president said gun was not a solution to the issues of Kashmir which can be addressed through dialogue.

She said she was happy that the BJP understood that there was no option other than what Mufti Mohammad Sayeed used to say regarding dialogue with Pakistan.

"America is a big power, but it has failed in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is Syria and Libya, are they not independent nations?

"But once the gun entered these countries, everything was lost. Gun does not benefit anyone.

"I can feel what parents must be going thorough whose sons were lost yesterday or any youth who takes to the gun and is killed in an encounter," she said.

Jammu and Kashmir was put under Governor's Rule after Sayeed passed away in New Delhi on January 7 after a brief illness.

The PDP and the BJP are still not close to any understanding on government formation in the state.