Mattu files nomination for Mayor as PC Candidate

Srinagar, Nov 2: Junaid Azim Mattu filed his nomination papers in Srinagar on Friday for election to the post of Mayor of Srinagar at the Office of Commissioner Srinagar Municipal Corporation as the candidate of Peoples’ Conference.
Accompanied by Corporators and supporters, Junaid filed the papers around noon on Friday.
The party has also declared its support to an independent candidate from Habbak, Muhammad Saleem Lone for the post of Deputy Mayor. Saleem Lone also filed his nomination papers today for the Deputy Mayor’s post.
Speaking on the occasion, Senior PC Leader Irfan Ansari said the party is confident that the party will handsomely win the race for the post of Mayor and Deputy Mayor. The senior PC Leader said that the new Corporation would leave no stone unturned to usher the City into a corrective era of balanced growth, urban development and progressive vision.
When asked Irfan Ansari about the statement made by PCC Chief G A Mir that this Mayoral election is a contest between Secularism and Communalism, Irfan Ansari said “In the eyes of the Congress, does being Muslims who aspire to contribute amount to being ‘communal’? We are at a loss how the name Junaid Azim Mattu is identified by ‘communalism’ by Congress? Is he not a Muslim or does being a Muslim who challenges the established political hegemony make him ‘communal’? We believe in delivering change and serving the people and will persevere to provide an alternative to political monopoly of the tried and tested permutations and combinations. We also didn’t know that lanes, roads, development and progress fell into the ambit of communalism or that yearning to usher into an era of urban solutions for the city of Srinagar falls into the ambit of communalism for the Congress. These so-called ‘secularists’ who have presided over the worst communal carnages in the country should stop sermonizing and stop constantly concealing their inability to inspire people under the fig-leaf of self-validated isms”, Irfan Ansari said.