Ex-J&K finance minister Haseeb Drabu quits PDP, says he didn't agree with 'manner' of dissolution of Assembly

Former Jammu and Kashmir finance minister Haseeb Drabu on Thursday quit the People’s Democratic Party. In a letter written to PDP chief and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, Drabu said, “It has been exactly four and a half years since I joined the J&K PDP. I can’t say that I enjoyed every moment of it. But when I look back at it, it has been an enriching and enlightening association.”

Bidding Adieu to PDP. Another phase of life over. pic.twitter.com/r5YbZoYRYb

— Haseeb Drabu (@HaseebDrabu) December 6, 2018

“My legislative engagement has prematurely come to an end with the dissolution of the state assembly by the Governor. I don’t agree with the timing and manner in which it was done. It doesn’t credit either the democratic system or its custodian participants with any glory whatsoever (sic),” he further said in the letter. [caption id=“attachment_4258547” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Haseeb Drabu. PTI[/caption] In March this year, the then Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti had dropped Drabu from the council of ministers, reportedly over his remarks at a function in New Delhi that Kashmir was not a political issue. PDP sources had told PTI that Mufti had written a letter to Governor NN Vohra, advising him to drop Drabu from the council of ministers. Earlier in New Delhi, Drabu had said, “It (Kashmir issue) is not a political issue as far as I can see. They have been barking up the wrong tree for the last 50 or 70 years by talking about the politics of it, that the political situation has never improved.” “We seriously need to look at in terms of how it is a society that is in search for itself,” he had said at the event organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry. With inputs from PTI