Srinagar: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday accused Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah of “betraying the poor” by opposing the land rights bill introduced by her party MLA Waheed Para in the Assembly.
The former chief minister said the bill sought to protect underprivileged families who had built small houses on grazing land decades ago, not to legitimise recent encroachments.
On Tuesday, the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly rejected Para’s bill, which proposed granting proprietary rights to those who had built homes on government or community land. Chief Minister Abdullah argued that passing it would “open floodgates for land grab.”
“Omar hasn’t betrayed the PDP — he has betrayed the poor, whose shelters he now wants to take away,” Mehbooba told reporters when asked if the chief minister had gone back on his understanding with her party following the Rajya Sabha elections.
She clarified that the proposed legislation was meant to safeguard people who had been living on small patches of state land for decades.
“We were talking about families who have been living on four to five marlas of land for 20–25 years — not those who have recently encroached,” she said.
Criticising Abdullah’s stance, Mehbooba said the bill’s rejection amounted to denying shelter to the poor.
“The BJP called it ‘land jihad’, and Omar termed them land grabbers — as if the people of Jammu and Kashmir are land thieves. We only wanted to save the roofs of poor families who have faced bulldozers since 2019,” she said.
Referring to the PDP’s support for the National Conference (NC) in the recent Rajya Sabha elections, Mehbooba said her party had backed the NC in return for support to the land rights bill.
“We have only three votes. We gave them our support and asked them to save the shelters of the poor — but what can I do if Omar didn’t want to?” she remarked.
She also reiterated her party’s concern for daily wagers, noting that the PDP had brought a bill to regularise them.
“These workers — in PHE, Power, Health, Education — are among the poorest, yet they keep essential services running. The government had promised to regularise them and protect people’s land rights,” she said.
Dismissing Omar Abdullah’s repeated claim that the absence of statehood limits his government’s powers, Mehbooba said,
“Lack of statehood cannot be an excuse. Even without it, he could have done something about this bill and addressed people’s fears over land. Unfortunately, he chose not to.”
