Farooq Abdullah named chair of Gupkar declaration alliance; Mehbooba Mufti to be deputy

Srinagar:  National Conference president Farooq Abdullah was on Saturday unanimously chosen as the chairman of the recently-floated Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration while PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti will be his deputy, the amalgam said. CPM leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami is the convenor of the alliance, while Sajad Lone of People’s Conference has been named as the spokesperson. The amalgam leaders, who met at the residence of Mehbooba Mufti for the first time after its formation, adopted the flag of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir as its symbol. The alliance will come out with a white paper within a month on governance in Jammu and Kashmir over the past one year since the abrogation of Article 370, Lone told reporters after the meeting. “The white paper will not be rhetoric. “It will be based on facts and figures to present the reality to the people of Jammu and Kashmir and around the country… An impression is being given that all the corruption had happened in Jammu and Kashmir only,” Lone said. The alliance also decided to hold its next meeting after a fortnight in Jammu, followed by a convention in Srinagar on 17 November.