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| Shifting stand Omar raises his hands, says AFSPA won't be revoked in coming months | | | Rustam
JAMMU, Feb 25: On February 22, National Conference Working President and Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah asserted that revocation of AFSPA would begin during his current regime, but on February 24, he said that it won't be revoked in coming months. "I had said that the gradual revocation of AFSPA will begin from my government's this tenure and the same will happen...I talked about gradual revocation of AFSPA, worked continuously for it and there was a time when he and the then Home Minister of India P. Chidambaram were on same page and we had convinced the Prime Minister but the Defence Minister did not agree to the proposal as he was inclined to support the argument of armed forces in this regard," he, inter-alia, said while replying the discussion on his grants in the Legislative Assembly in Jammu.
The statement of Omar Abdullah on the AFSPA did suggest that he was perhaps committed to what he said, notwithstanding the fact that he did not give any timeline. But this was not to be. Within 48 hours, he took a complete U-turn and said that the AFSPA won't be revoked in coming months. "Let this year pass on. I will again raise the issue with New Delhi later this year. Some people expressed apprehensions about 2014. That is why I have said let the first half of the year pass, then I will surely take up the issue with the Government of India," he said at Sheeri (Baramulla) on he sidelines of a police function.
Omar Abdullah says he would take up this issue later this year with the Government of India. This is a laughable statement. Laughable because the Congress-led UPA Government would be out of power in May this year and his own tenure as Chief Minister is up to January 4, 2015. Omar Abdullah took over as Chief Minister on January 5, 2009. Remember, after October 15, Omar Abdullah would be only a caretaker Chief Minister, as the election Commission of India would enforce model code of conduct around that time to ensure fair conduct of assembly election in the state. There are reasons to believe that Narendra Modi of the BJP will be at the helm in New Delhi in the last week of May and everyone knows that the BJP is vehemently opposed to the revocation of the AFSPA, as it believes that the situation in the Kashmir Valley and certain other parts of the state is highly volatile and that any laxity on internal security front could prove counter-productive for the country. But more than that, the next government in the state could be a non-NC-led government. And if that happens, what would he do? The fact of the matter is that Omar Abdullah was never committed to what he had been saying about the AFSPA since five years now. He was for power and he shall be after power and for power he could compromise his position anytime, as he did during the past more than five years and nine months.
But this is not the issue. The NC is a party that is known more for U-turns than for anything else. The issue is the people whom the NC leadership has been fooling since decades for the sake if power and profit. Will the people of the state in general and Kashmir in particular take cognizance of the Omar Abdullah's double-speak and politics of rhetoric and teach this party a lesson in the forthcoming Lok Sabha lesson? It will be seen. It will also be seen what kind of role the PDP plays to call the NC's bluff. |
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