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| "Kashmiris are mahachor" statement damaged NC's poll prospects | | | Rustam
JAMMU, May 25: National Conference (NC) working president and JAMMU & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Friday gave a very long interview to a correspondent of an English language daily. During the interview, he took many questions and also catalogued the reasons behind the humiliating defeat of the NC candidates, including his own father and former J&K Chief Minister and Union Minister Farooq Abdullah, in the just- held Lok Sabha elections. Besides Farooq Abdullah, the other two NC candidates who suffered massive defeat at the hands of the PDP candidates - Mehbooba Mufti, Muzzaffar Hussain Beig and Tariq Hamid Karra - were Mehboob Beg and
Sharif-ud-Din Shariq. Tariq Hamid trounced Farooq Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti defeated Mehboob Beg and Muzzaffar Hussain Beig made Shariq to bite dust. Reflecting on the causes responsible for the defeat of the NC and its failure to open its account in the Valley despite the fact that the Congress had also supported the NC candidates as they were the coalition candidates, Omar Abdullah said that one of the causes was his father's own statement that Kashmiris were mahachor (biggest thieves). "There were a host of issues which led to the results. The issues like electricity tariffs, the difficulty in distribution of ration especially in run up to the elections; our campaign clearly for which I have to take primary responsibility did not touch upon the issues that matter to people. We fought this election on who should be the next Prime Minister. Our opponents took up the local issues.
Things that one had said and done put us in an awkward position. My Minister (Mohammad Akar Lone) lost his temper with a young man during a rally. We paid a price for that. My opponents took party president Dr Farooq Abdullah's couple of statements (Kashmiris are biggest power thieves) and used them against us. He meant them light-heartedly but they used them against us. Mehbooba Mufti would go to a rally and ask people to decide whether they are thieves or biggest thieves. She used it against us like we used her disastrous Parliament speech of 2008 against her. The summer of 2010 was a factor. The execution of Afzal Guru in some minds was a factor, the issues related to employees and jobless youth and disconnect between party leadership and large chunk of youth led to the results," he said.
It bears recalling that the then Union Minister for Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah had on March 2 this year described the people of Kashmir as the biggest thieves while commenting on the dismal scenario of power sector in Jammu & Kashmir. "Kashmiri chor nahi mahachor hai (Kashmiris are not just thieves, they are biggest thieves). They use illegal electricity connections and bribe the local linemen and this was the main problem plaguing the state's Power Development Department," he had said while releasing a report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) titled: "Citizen's report on state of renewable energy in the national capital, Delhi.
Convinced that his statement had shocked and angered the people of Kashmir and that it could cause damage to the poll prospects of the NC in the Lok Sabha elections, Farooq Abdullah on April 27 tried to give the people understand that he never meant what he said and that since the Kashmiris were poor, they stole electricity. "You (Mufti) say Farooq Abdullah calls us (Kashmiris) thieves and you (people) vote for him. Yes, we steal electricity.
What can we do, there is poverty. We have to resort to such things. Gas prices have reached sky high," he said while addressing an election rally at Khanyar, Srinagar. It is clear that his clarification did not click, and, hence, his defeat. Omar Abdullah only said what was correct to a large extent. |
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