Shah Faesal, who resigned from the IAS earlier this month to enter politics, says his ‘purpose would not be fulfilled’ by joining an existing political party.
New Delhi: Former IAS officer Shah Faesal joining the National Conference (NC) immediately after resigning from service was supposed to be “a done deal”, but the backlash he received from across the Kashmir Valley appears to have compelled him to step back and take the Independent candidate route.
“He was in talks with the top NC leadership. It was decided that he would immediately join the party after resigning and after a while, we will put him up as a candidate for the Lok Sabha elections,” a senior NC leader told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
“But as soon as he made the announcement, he got a lot of backlash from separatists. He got hassled and backed out.”
Faesal, perhaps, felt that by joining a mainstream party he would be in the line of fire, another highly placed source in the party said.
The first Kashmiri to top the civil services exam, Faesal announced his resignation from the services on 7 January. He was expected to immediately join the NC after the announcement but in a surprise move at a press conference four days later, he said he wasn’t joining any mainstream party.
The source in the NC said Faesal’s talks with the party ended after the press conference.
Faesal, however, told ThePrint that talk of him joining the NC was mere “speculation”.
“It was all speculation since Omar (Abdullah) sahab has been very gracious in welcoming me to politics. He never talked about joining NC,” Faesal said.
He added that people want him to “stay independent” and so he was respecting their sentiments.
“I think I had easier paths to choose but I deliberately took the difficult one,” Faesal said. “I could have joined an existing political party, and won very easily but somewhere I believe the purpose for which I did all this would not be fulfilled by joining an existing political party.”
The former IAS officer also said that he was contemplating floating his own party, for which, he added, he has been receiving support in the Valley.
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The backlash
Minutes after Faesal announced his decision to resign from the civil services, Abdullah had taken to Twitter to welcome him to the fold. Abdullah, however, later clarified that he only meant to welcome Faesal into the political fold and not specifically to the NC.
“He was obviously trolled by separatists in the Valley because why would they want someone young and bright like him to join electoral politics?” the senior NC leader quoted above said. “But he does not understand that people on Twitter are not the ones who go and vote,” the leader added.
“People will oppose you either way but had he joined the NC, he would not be facing the backlash all by himself,” the leader said. “All these accusations of him being a traitor would have been tackled since our cadre would have had his back. Maybe he thought he can take separatists along too.”
The NC leader, though, said it would still be premature to rule out Faesal joining the party.
“He said he wants time, so now he has to open his cards fully, and then we’ll see how his politics plays out,” the leader said. “Right now, he is slightly confused.”
Given the current state of affairs, however, the NC will fight to defeat Faesal if he contests as an Independent candidate like any other opponent, the party leader said.
“His plans are for him to talk about, but we will fight him like any other opponent if he fights as an Independent,” the leader said. “But what he needs to see is that if he fights as an Independent, he will only fragment the mandate of the people, and strengthen the proxies of the BJP in the Valley…How does that help?”
‘Want to educate India about Kashmir’
Faesal, who recently launched a crowd-funding campaign for “clean politics and corruption-free administration” in Jammu and Kashmir, said that he would like to come to Parliament in order to educate the rest of the country about Kashmir, and have informed debates over issues such as Article 370 and Article 35A.
“A lot of people (from Kashmir) have been going to Parliament, but Parliament is not only about giving two-minute speeches once a year,” he said. “It is about lot of other things, including working with the rest of the parliamentarians, educating them about Kashmir and also working with the Indian civil society and Indian intellectuals.
“We are talking things like Article 370 and Article 35A debate. The entire narrative in the rest of the country is against these articles, people believe these should be done away with,” he added. “You stop it by building an opinion in the rest of the country.”
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Shri Shah Faesal can either be pragmatic or principled. Established parties like the NC and the PDP have to ally with either national party, predferably the one in power in Delhi, to come to power. A very attenuated, circumscribed power at the best of times. The problems of Kashmir are far, far above the pay grade of an idealistic civil servant to resolve. A voice so filled with promise and poetry should not be added to so many that have been stilled over the years. And if one must be pragmatic, work within the bounds of the system, toh phir IAS mein kya khaami thi …