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| Modi's nomination as PM candidate and Omar Abdullah | | Interview | | Neha
JAMMU, Sept 15: NC working president and J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Saturday did acknowledge that the decision of the BJP Parliamentary Board to nominate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the Prime Ministerial candidate for the coming Lok Sabha elections will have its impact in the state and that he was fully prepared to meet the challenge. This was the literal meaning of what he told during an interview to a leading correspondent.
During the interview, Omar Abdullah reportedly said: "It (Modi's nomination as PM candidate) won't affect much because local issues dominate in Assembly elections. Since there are elements who would try and gain from polarization, there might be a limited fall-out, but not much…With the kind of incidents that have taken place in Uttar Pradesh and in Kishtwar, there is a possibility of these elements trying to create a situation…We are alert on that count". Omar Abdullah also reportedly said that "he was conscious of the fact that Modi and his team would take up the recall of Article 370 and the Hindutuva agenda" and asserted that "they may have only a little fallout in the elections". Article 370, which is essentially divisive, separatist and anti-minorities and pro-Kashmir and one sect-centric, grants a special status to the state to the extent that New Delhi cannot extend any Central law to the state without the consent of the state government.
Omar Abdullah, who has repeatedly challenged the accession of the state to India and has been demanding greater autonomy for the state (read semi-independence), attacking the Army and urging the Centre to withdraw AFSPA from the State for years now, did not stop just there. He went to the extent of virtually charging the BJP with playing a mischief and making mountains out of molehills as far as the issue of minorities in the state was concerned.
Everyone in the state and outside knows that the BJP and similar other parties and organizations such as Panun Kashmir have been highlighting the issues confronting the minorities in Jammu & Kashmir. They have been arguing that the minorities were forced to quit Kashmir and that certain forces in Kashmir and certain elements in the establishment have been conspiring against Jammu to change its demographic profile where the minority community forms a majority.
Three things were clear from what he said during the interview. One was that the nomination of Modi as PM candidate for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections has upset Omar Abdullah. The other was that he blamed the BJP for Kishtwar violence and communal riots in Uttar Pradesh. And the third was his belief that the BJP will intensify its struggle against Article 370 and rake up the issues confronting the minority communities. His interview, in fact, suggested that the nomination of Modi as the BJP PM candidate has altered the political situation to an extent and that this new element in the country's political life does pose a live challenge to the communal and separatist politics in Kashmir. |
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