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| Farooq, Omar indulging in histrionics and rhetoric for votes, says Mufti | | Evolving national consensus on Kashmir | | Neha
JAMMU, May 1: The other day, PDP patron and former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed accused NC president Farooq Abdullah and his son and party's working president Omar Abdullah of indulging in histrionics and rhetoric for votes and underlined the need to evolve a national consensus on Jammu and Kashmir. "A political will and broader national consensus is needed to address the Kashmir issue…Kashmir has suffered too much and for too long. (It should not) be turned into a slanging match for electoral gains. Instead of indulging in histrionics and rhetoric for votes, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and his Union Minister father Dr Farooq Abdullah should tell the people what they have done for Jammu and Kashmir while in power all these years," he said while addressing a series of election rallies in Sangrama Assembly segment of Baramulla Parliamentary Constituency. "Having lost the ground, National Conference leaders are ironically now trying to exploit Kashmir's pain for political gains by indulging in absurd theatrics. While people in every nook and corner of Jammu andKashmir are suffering immensely because of the complete collapse of governance, NC leaders have reverted back to the outdated tactics of emotional blackmail to exploit the public sentiment…The reign of repression let loose by the NC-Congress coalition regime on the hapless youth is pushing the State towards another phase of instability and strife. As the people are trying to recoup with the tragedies of turmoil, unfortunately, NC leaders have started pushing Kashmir back into a turbulent situation, as it suits the party's political interests…There seems to be complete anarchy in the State at present with repression and alienation going up dangerously.
Although New Delhi has never given such unflinching support to any Chief Minister in J&K as was given to Omar Abdullah, but unfortunately five years down the line, Omar Abdullah instead of using this support for public good has presided over the complete collapse of governance in J&K. When the present Government will be voted out by the people towards the end of this year, if anything, it would be remembered as the darkest era for J&K for recurrence of killings by unidentified gunmen, wanton arrests, mounting sense of insecurity, socio-economic instability, frightening increase in crime rate, menacing drug abuse, deaths in road rage, vanishing rule of law, rampant corruption, institutional degradation, misgovernance, dilapidated roads, power shortage, drinking water scarcity, unemployment, maladministration, spurious medicines, frustrating traffic snarls and countless other anti-people measures," Mufti also said.
The upshot of his whole argument was that the NC has "damaged the basic cause of Kashmiris by always tilting towards power and not pursuing the interests of people from whom it has been taking votes from the last 65 years. Mufti only hit the nail on the head by saying what he said about the NC and Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah. Indeed, the NC has failed the people of the state on all fronts and created many difficulties for New Delhi in Kashmir valley, besides jeopardizing the interests of Jammu and Ladakh and various religious and ethnic minorities in the state.
The Mufti's other refrain was that it was time that a national consensus on Jammu and Kashmir was evolved to end unrest and forge a lasting peace in the region. It would have been better had he first talked about a broader consensus within the State of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. It is not a secret that the political perceptions of the people of Jammu and Ladakh are fundamentally different from those of the leadership in the Kashmir valley. Suffice to say that Jammu and Ladakh - apart from the internally displaced Kashmiri Hindus - are ardent believers in the concept of national unity and the Kashmiri leadership endorses a line that is disliked by them. This glaring disparity in the political perceptions has to be recognized. As for the Indian nation as a whole, it can be said without any hesitation that it is for the state's complete integration into India. What, then, is the way out? The way out is mainstream politics, coupled with reorganization of the state on a regional, as opposed to religion, basis. There is no other alternative. |
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