IAS officer Shah Faesal's JK-based party merges with AAP

The president and other office-bearers of the Jammu and Kashmir People's Movement, a political outfit floated by IAS officer Shah Faesal in 2019, joined the Aam Aadmi Party in New Delhi on Thursday.

Addressing a press conference, Delhi Food and Supplies Minister Imran Hussain said the JKPM has merged with AAP with "almost" all of its office-bearers joining the ranks with the Arvind Kejriwal-led party.

The JKPM leaders joined the AAP in the presence of party national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. 

The development comes within a fortnight after the JKPM announced its exit from the People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration, a grouping of five political parties, including the National Conference (NC) and People's Democratic Party (PDP). The alliance was formed in October 2020 with an aim of restoring Article 370 which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

Faesal, who had floated the JKPM to ”revive democratic politics” in Jammu and Kashmir, was reinstated in service in earlier April with the Union government accepting his application for withdrawing his resignation.

The doctor-turned-bureaucrat, who was detained under the stringent Public Safety Act immediately after the abrogation of the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, gave up on politics and started dropping hints of his willingness to rejoin the government service after his release from detention in June 2020.

"We formed the JKPM in 2019, taking inspiration from Arvind Kejriwal. And, after the AAP came in Jammu and Kashmir, we wondered why we should not join hands and work together when our thoughts and mission are same," JKPM president Ghulam Mustafa Khan told reporters.

"So we decided that we will not remain separate. We will come together and fight to achieve our mission under the leadership of Kejriwal," he added.

Other JKMP office-bearers who joined AAP are its treasurer Mir Mudasir, general secretary Javed Ahmed Khan, senior vice president Muhammad Hussain, Jammu province convenor Surendra Thapa and the party's chief spokesperson Riyaz Majid.

"I welcome them along with every office-bearer and volunteer of the JKPM on its merger with the Aam Aadmi Party, and hope that we contest the upcoming assembly elections and form our government (in Jammu and Kashmir), taking our party's mission forward," Hussain said.

Hussain is AAP's election in-charge for Jammu and Kashmir.