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Srinagar, Oct 25:\u00a0<\/strong>Peoples Conference Chairman and MLA Handwara, Sajad Gani Lone on Saturday accused the National Conference (NC) of \u201ckilling merit\u201d through its handling of reservations and alleged that Kashmiri candidates are being deliberately left out of government job opportunities.<\/p>\n Addressing a press conference in Srinagar, Lone, who is also MLA from Handwara, said his party will soon launch a \u201cfull-fledged campaign\u201d against the ongoing reservation policy in Jammu and Kashmir.<\/p>\n \u201cThis government is out to kill merit. Open merit has been buried. We are going to start a ground-level registration drive against this policy,\u201d Lone said, warning that the system \u201cis pushing Kashmir towards a major disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n He said his party will take to the streets if needed. \u201cWe will go door to door. If hunger strikes or mass protests are required, we will not hesitate. Enough is enough,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Lone also launched a strong attack on the National Conference, accusing it of being \u201chand in glove\u201d with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the recent Rajya Sabha elections.<\/p>\n \u201cThese two or three extra votes had no room for that\u00a0 candidate number four,\u201d Lone said. \u201cEven if there had been no cross-voting, that candidate would still have lost. All the cross-voting was done by the National Conference. They did it themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n He claimed seven NC members \u201cdirectly gifted their votes to the BJP.\u201d \u201cIt was a fixed match,\u201d Lone said. \u201cThis is the same party that accused others of being with the BJP. And today, they are sitting in BJP\u2019s lap.\u201d<\/p>\n Lone said the NC\u2019s actions have exposed its claims of being an opposition force. \u201cOur people must open their eyes and see how they were deceived. Even if BJP is not in power directly, their preferred party is ruling now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Criticising NC vice president Omar Abdullah, Lone said the Congress was deliberately denied a winnable Rajya Sabha seat. \u201cThey offered Congress a losing seat, number four. Omar Abdullah was asking, \u2018Why don\u2019t they contest for number four?\u2019 They wanted it this way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Lone argued that the Congress, as a national party, should have been given priority. \u201cA national party carries a different weight on the national stage. Regional parties do not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He further accused the NC\u2019s past Rajya Sabha members of failing to deliver in Delhi. \u201cNone of them brought anything substantial back. They only went there to get small personal favors,\u201d Lone said.<\/p>\n Calling the NC\u2019s political approach \u201csubmissive before Delhi,\u201d Lone said, \u201cFor seventy years, this has been the story. They go to Delhi saying \u2018beat us but let us weep.\u2019 They ask Delhi to tighten the stick while pretending to resist here.\u201d<\/p>\n On the abrogation of Article 370, Lone alleged that \u201cmidnight meetings\u201d between Delhi and NC leaders before August 5, 2019,\u00a0 were full of \u201cbetrayal after betrayal.\u201d<\/p>\n He urged the people of Jammu and Kashmir to \u201cwake up\u201d and recognize what he described as \u201ca long-standing political deception.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe BJP ensures the victory of its own candidates through these same people. They abuse BJP during elections to fool voters, but they are working together behind the scenes,\u201d Lone said<\/p>\n The Peoples Conference chief said he was \u201cgrateful to Allah\u201d for staying away from what he termed \u201cthis entire corrupt process.\u201d \u201cI thank Almighty Allah that I abstained from voting, otherwise today all fingers would have been pointed at me,\u201d he said\u2014(KNO)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Srinagar, Oct 25:\u00a0Peoples Conference Chairman and MLA Handwara, Sajad Gani Lone on Saturday accused the National Conference (NC) of \u201ckilling merit\u201d through its handling of reservations and alleged that Kashmiri candidates are being deliberately left out of government job opportunities. Addressing a press conference in Srinagar, Lone, who is also MLA from Handwara, said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2119,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117\/revisions\/2119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}