I discussed this at length with [MENTION=131678]Madplayer[/MENTION] in July last year, when rumors were rife about the upcoming change. I was making the case for Pakistan to make some sort of rapprochement with the so-called “mainstream” parties (who are actually anything but representative of the mainstream), and make them see the benefits of moving away from their pro-HM stand and convince them that they will have a future in politics after independence. Madplayer’s exact words were that the NC and PDP are “full of serpents and vipers,” and it simply wasn’t worth considering.
These parties have made pro-Pakistan and pro-independence noises in the past too. Sheikh Abdullah himself between 1953 to 1975 was pro-independence (as head of the Plebiscite Front), and was even given a hero’s welcome in Pakistan in 1964. We know what became of that.
This statement, plus Mehbooba Mufti’s acknowledgement that they (actually the NC, so it’s a dig at her political rivals also) made a mistake in 1947, would hint at the possibility that the “mainstream” would actually become mainstream, but there has been many a false dawn in decades past.