Srinagar Dec 29: Kukka Parrey, a former militant who dealt a heavy blow to insurgency in Kashmir before becoming a Legislator, is toying with the idea of joining the Bhartiya Janata party (BJP).Sources close to Parrey say he has held several meetings with the party leaders like L K Advani and Kedar Nath Sawhny and the State leaders like Chaman lal Gupta and Vaid Vishnu Dutt in Delhi and Jammu. A close confidant of Parrey swore that BJP was keen to accord him a high-profile entry to him.
Parrey's entry in the saffron brigade was earlier planned along with the Jayalalitha's announcement from Chennai of her alliance with the BJP. Parrey, as usual, did not keep the appointment and the event was postponed.
Parrey had again met Advani in Delhi recently and expressed his willingness to join the party, sources said. ``There is no reason why he should delay it now as all the party functionaries are getting restive,'' a party activist said.
Kukka Parrey's Awami league had slipped into limbo after the State
Assembly elections where it won the lone seat from Kashmir. His associates, many of them former militants, are keen for an active political role and bet the BJP is their only logical choice.``
Contesting Lok Sabha elections (in 1996) was an extension of our fight against Pakistan-sponsored militancy and later we took part in the Assembly election mainly with an aim to give a political facade to our movement,'' said an aide of Parrey who lamented that in the new political scenario in Kashmir where National Confrence ruled supreme, Awami League had become politically irrelevant.
Parrey's partymen are also worried about the systematic militant campaign to annihilate its activist and top commanders who are still actively helping the security forces in Kashmir. ``We need political backing from Centre for our survival which only BJP may be ready to accord,'' a former militant activist of the League said.
Parrey, however is skeptical, and is still said to be nervous about openly fluttering the BJP flag in
predominantly Muslim-populated Kashmir. Another reason for his demurring on joining the BJP is the preemptive move by rival counter-insurgent group led by Hilal Haider and another Kashmiri minority leader Deen Mohammad Cheeta. Parrey, who has enjoyed a larger than life image as a counter-insurgent feels belittled in image for having become the the `he-too-joined-stuff'.
Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
