Who is the businessman turned Neta Altaf Bukhari?
Altaf Bukhari is a businessman-turned-politician who joined the PDP in 2005. His family owns FIL Industries, which makes apple concentrates. Bukhari’s sons and his brother Syed Tariq take care of the business side. In addition to apple concentrates, the family has interests in several other sectors such as health, crafts, hospitality, agricultural products, etc.
Bukhari won from Amira Kadal in Srinagar in the 2014 Assembly elections. Ironically, in those elections, Bukhari and the PDP as a whole garnered much support from voters who thought the party was in the best position to resist the efforts of the BJP to make inroads in Kashmir.
He became a minister when Mufti Mohammad Sayeed formed a coalition government with the BJP, but it was removed after Mehbooba Mufti took office. However, he was later reinstated and brought in as Minister of Education and later took charge of finances.
After the breakdown of the PDP-BJP coalition, Bukhari was being considered as a consensus candidate for a possible PDP-NC-Congress coalition but the governor dissolved the Assembly.
In January 2019, Bukhari was expelled from the PDP. After the repeal of Article 370 later that year, Bukhari was one of the few politicians who was not arrested.
This was a time when not only the leadership of NC and the PDP, but also leaders like Sajad Lone of the People’s Conference and the leader of the People’s Movement of Jammu and Kashmir, Shah Faesal, were also detained.
As the months passed, the Center desperately searched for a Kashmiri leader who would be willing to do business with him in the changing circumstances of Jammu and Kashmir, deprived not only of special status, but of statehood itself.
But nobody agreed. Someone like Sajad Lone, previously said to be close to the BJP, is even said to have refused to play ball. This left the field open for Bukhari.
Bukhari was luckier among the ex-PDPs, as the NC cadres remained mostly loyal.
As a result of these efforts, Bukhari formed the Apni Party in March 2020 and reportedly became the Center’s new favorite in Kashmir.
In that sense, the desertion of NC and PDP candidates in Shopian, while some of their leaders remain in detention, is nothing more than a repetition of how the Apni Party was formed.
.
