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| Difficult to rule out possibility of NC not joining BJP-led NDA | | 2014 elections | | Rustam
Jammu, Feb 8: National Conference (NC) working president and Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah who, along with his father, party president and Union Minister Farooq Abdullah, yesterday visited dargah of Sufi saint Khawaja Moinuddin Chisti, Ajmer (Rajasthan), ruled out the possibility of entering into an alliance with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the upcoming general elections. "Jammu and Kashmir NC will not join NDA," Omar said at Ajmer.
It is difficult to trust the NC top brass considering the past experience or their past political conduct. The NC has in the past allied itself with parties it used to denounce holding them responsible for the "alienation" of Kashmiri Muslims and accusing them of working against it and its leaders like Sheikh Abdullah (founder of the NC) and Farooq Abdullah, who succeeded Sheikh Abdullah after his death in the early 1980s. The Congress had got Sheikh Abdullah dismissed from the office of Wazir-e-Azam and arrested in August 1953 on the charge of "sedition". Sheikh Abdullah remained in Jail for many years and out of power for 22 long years, but befriended the Congress (read Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru who had ensured the dismissal and arrest of Sheikh Abdullah) in 1974-1975 for the sake of personal power and profit overlooking his bitter relations with the Congress party.
Relations between Farooq Abdullah and the Congress (read Indira Gandhi) were also bitter. In the middle of 1980s the Government of Farooq Abdullah was dismissed on the ground that the Chief Minister had become a "threat" to national security. It was none other than Indira Gandhi who had manipulated fall of the NC-led Government for whatever reasons. But Farooq Abdullah befriended the same Congress (read Rajiv Gandhi, son of Indira Gandhi) in 1986 overlooking the bitterness between him and the Congress and entered into an accord (Rajiv Farooq accord) obviously for the sake of loaves and fishes of office. Notwithstanding the bitterness of extreme nature between the NC top brass and the Congress top brass, one can, however, say that they were natural allies, as there was no fundamental difference in their ideologies: Both were, and are, "secular" parties and both in a way consider Jammu and Kashmir an unsettled issue. Even today, the NC and the Congress are working in tandem both in the State and at the Centre, notwithstanding Mustafa Kamaal's and Sheikh Nazir's hatred for the Congress, New Delhi and the Indian Constitution.
However, none had ever expected that the NC top brass would take a complete U-turn in the late 1990s and enter into an alliance with the BJP, a party which considered the NC virtually "anti-national" and a party which the NC all through condemned as "communal", "fundamentalist", "anti-Kashmir" and anti-Muslim", but it did become the BJP's ally and had the audacity to defend its dramatic U-turn. It not only entered into an alliance with the BJP but also became part of the BJP-led NDA Government and enjoyed power for almost three years. Omar Abdullah functioned as Minister of State in the BJP-led NDA Government.
It is obvious that the NC top brass was "power hungry" and it established by its actions and U-turns that it could go to any extent to grab power or to remain in power. The same NC leadership is at the helm these days. There are reasons to believe that they would take no time in taking another U-turn in case the Indian electorate rejects the "secular" Congress-led UPA Government in the 2014 general elections. There is the possibility of the Indian electorate throwing out the present dispensation at the Centre lock, stock and barrel. It could happen in 2013 itself. The NC top brass cannot live without power and for power it can sacrifice anything. There should be no doubt about it. The PDP appears right when it accuses the NC top brass of "bartering the party ideology" to fulfill its "insatiable" lust for power and pelf. |
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