Apni Party President Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari on Wednesday said the protocol powers and honorarium announced for recently elected District Development Council (DDC) chairpersons and its members has exposed the mindset of bureaucratic set-up that has never wanted democracy to flourish in Jammu and Kashmir for its ulterior motives. Taking a strong exception to the warrant of precedence issued by the Jammu and Kashmir government, Bukhari said the hierarchy of positions and its associated protocols for DDC chairpersons and council members is a technical attempt to defeat the purpose for which these elections were held for the first time in the history of J&K. “The humiliating protocol powers and honorarium announced by the government for DDC Chairpersons and Council Members is in absolute contradiction to what the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister had envisaged for these elected representatives of the people,” he said, in a statement, hoping that by now the government of India must have gauged the bureaucratic impediments that have always tried to uproot democratic edifice in this politically sensitive part of the country. Bukhari appealed to the political parties to refrain from politicizing this issue which is a creation of an official fiefdom. “I don’t see any politics in it. Almost all the political parties in Jammu and Kashmir are on the same page on this issue. I also appeal to the DDC Chairpersons and Council Members not to lose their hope and consider en masse resignation as the last resort to get this issue resolved,” he observed.
