Too early to say if Farooq's gamble bears results - Early Times Newspaper Jammu Kashmir

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Too early to say if Farooq's gamble bears results

11/22/2015 10:16:30 PM

Why the National Conference leadership has joined hands with the anti BJP block or alliance? Before this question finds some answer. One poses one counter question to NC President, Dr Farooq Abdullah,and his son, Omar Abdullah. Had Farooq Abdullah been in power in Jammu and Kashmir would he have joined the opposition alliance even if the BJP led NDA Government was in the Centre? Certainly not. Another question. Had the National Conference won 30 seats in the previous Assembly election would Farooq have joined hands with the BJP, which had won 25 seats in the Assembly, for the formation of the Government in Jammu and Kashmir? He would have done so to prevent the PDP from staking claim to the Government. Farooq would have been the last political figure to snap ties with the party or the parties in power in the Centre because of his bitter experience he had in 1984 when the then central Government, headed by Indira Gandhi, engineered defections within the National Conference which resulted in the fall of the duly elected Government headed by Farooq Abdullah. Since then he has learnt one lesson. Remain by the right side of the party in power in the Centre. Then why did Farooq Abdullah join hands with the non-BJP grand alliance when he and his son, Omar Abdullah, accepted the invitation from Nitish Kumar who was to be sworn in as Chief Minister of Bihar on Friday? The answer is simple. Farooq Abdullah and his National Conference are not in power in Jammu and Kahsmir. Hence he does not find any need for remaining by the right side of the Modi led Government. Secondly, he has come to believe that in order to regain the support of voters in Jammu and Kashmir, which he had lost as is evident from the poll results when the NC won only 15 seats in the Assembly. He believes that this can be possible if he dissociates himself from the BJP which has no buyers in the Kashmir valley but has lost the ground it had gained in the Jammu region during the previous Assembly election when it had, for the first time, won 25 seats. When the PDP was exploring the possibility for formation of the Government the PDP patron Mufti Mohd. Sayeed, had received an offer from the National Conference for forming a coalition Government with its support. At that stage even the senior Congress leader, Ghulam Nabi Azad, had floated the idea of forming a Government of grand alliance in which the PDP would be joined by the NC and the Congress. Now it seems that Farooq Abdullah plans to help other non-Congress and secular organizations for forming an anti-BJP bloc. As leaders of a range of Opposition parties - including serving Chief Ministers - arrived in Patna on Friday to watch the installation of the Nitish Kumar-led Grand Coalition government in Bihar, the message that went out was that there was a real possibility of an anti-BJP bloc being built up in the coming months. As Kumar took oath before a rapturous audience, and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah - a veteran of Opposition unity efforts over the past three decades - declared, "Nitish ji ko ab tayyiari karni chahiye Dilli aane ki aur agla Pradhanmantri banne ki," (Nitishji should now get ready to move to Delhi as the next Prime Minister), it almost looked doable. Kumar has a decade long track record of governance, with appeal cutting across class lines. This way Farooq Abdullah led National Conference has snapped whatever ties it had with the BJP with the hope that the Bihar Assembly election has opened the doors for the non-BJP parties to stage a comeback. And Farooq Abdullah seems to have come to the conclusion that by remaining on the right side of the grand alliance he could regain power in Jammu and Kashmir and if he opts for repeating the 2009 experiment by handing over to power to his son. Hence his joining hands with the non-BJP alliance is a calculated step as he thinks that by handing over power to his son Farooq,in that case, could find berth in the Union cabinet. Well it is too early to guess whether Farooq's gamble will yield results or not.

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