KD NEWS SERVICE
SRINAGAR, Mar 2: Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman Syed Ali Geelani ‘helped’ the PDP-BJP government in Jammu and Kashmir to implement Goods and Services Tax (GST), reveals Professor Hameeda Nayeem, the wife of senior separatist leader Nayeem Ahmad Khan. She was talking to reporters here on Saturday.
Talking to media person on the sidelines of a seminar, Prof. Hameeda Nayeem alleged that PDP- BJP coalition in Jammu and Kashmir sought help from separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani so that the GST-otherwise a central law, could be implemented in Jammu and Kashmir.
“Geelani was made to issue a statement in which he openly undermined the importance of Article 370 and declared that its erosion would least matter for the people of the State. Through this way, Geelani helped PDP to implement GST in Kashmir. Geelani is a person who had never a political head,” she said.
Professor Hameeda, whose husband Nayeem Ahmad Khan is a member of Geelani’s faction of Hurriyat Conference has for the first time made such a revelation that has made the 89-year-old Hurriyat hawk responsible for paving way for the implementation of central law in Jammu and Kashmir.
The story goes back to July 3, 2017 when Syed Ali Geelani surprised one and all and issued a statement, calling to de-link the debate over implementing the Goods and Services Tax from the issue of ‘resistance movement’ in Jammu and Kashmir.
Geelani also asked traders and the civil society members- who were leading a campaign against the GST – to “concentrate on the core issue of Kashmir and avoid any such measures or steps that may alter the discourse or hinder its resolution”, suggesting that the GST should not take a centre stage of the Kashmir movement.
He had asked traders and the civil society to “sort out the problems relating to their business (es)… and find ways and means to explore solution (s) to these complex situations”, indicating he would not play a direct role in opposing the implementation of GST in Jammu and Kashmir.
