In Bharat Jodo Yatra book, Mehbooba showers praise on Rahul, indicates a new Kashmir alignment

Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti’s praise for the Congress and its leader Rahul Gandhi in a chapter she wrote in a recent book on his cross-country march, Bharat Jodo Yatra: Reclaiming India’s Soul, is yet another indicator of the growing bonhomie between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the grand old party.

“… In such distressing circumstances, one can’t state enough the crucial role the Congress can play in alleviating the suffering of the people across the state. Let’s not forget it was Jawaharlal Nehru’s relentless efforts on a personal and political level that ensured Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India. The people of my state placed an enormous amount of trust in his assurances about their future being secure with India. His promises of making Jammu and Kashmir a show window for the world is what convinced a Muslim-majority state to throw in their lot with a country where they would be a minority, as opposed to choosing another which was created on the very basis of their own religion,” Mufti says in the book.

Mufti, who forayed into politics with the Congress and was elected to the Assembly for the first time in 1996 on the party’s ticket, has many reasons to rekindle her party’s “bond” with it. The PDP’s bitter break-up with the BJP in 2018, growing fissures between the National Conference (NC) and Congress, and the exit of Ghulam Nabi Azad from the Congress are some of them.

Since the PDP-BJP break up in 2018 and the subsequent abrogation of Article 370 the following year, Mufti has emerged as a fierce critic of its former ally and its policies vis-a-vis Jammu and Kashmir and Indian Muslims. With the BJP out of the equation, the PDP is left with no other political force other than the