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| Farooq unlikely to lead NC in Assembly elections | | Omar's writ continues to run | |
Rustam
JAMMU, June 20: National Conference president and three-time Chief Minister and former Union Minister Farooq Abdullah who suffered the first ever defeat in the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections, is unlikely to lead the party in the coming Assembly elections. According to credible sources in the party, Farooq Abdullah will not contest the Assembly election, despite the fact that there are leaders in the party who want him to contest the upcoming election. And if it happens, it would be the third time in a row that Farooq Abdullah would be putting all the eggs in the basket of his son Omar Abdullah, Chief Minister and party's working president. It would simply mean that he has lost grip over the party and his son, who is sitting on the ruins of the NC, is in full command. This doesn't augur well for the Kashmir's premier political party.
It was in 2002 that the then party president and Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah abdicated in favour of his son, who was just a greenhorn in politics. In fact, he imposed leadership of the party on Omar Abdullah much to the chagrin of old guards in the party. It was expected that the party would put up a poor show and face a major defeat in the Assembly elections to be held that year, as Omar Abdullah was no match to Farooq Abdullah, a seasoned politician in his own right and it happened. The party under the leadership of Omar Abdullah could win only 28 seats. In 1996, the NC had won 57 seats under the leadership of Farooq Abdullah. Significantly, Omar Abdullah, who contested Assembly election for the first time in 2002 from the Ganderbal constituency, lost the election to the PDP candidate Qazi Mohammad Afzal. It bears recalling that Omar Abdullah had told Barkha Dutt of NDTV 24X7 after filing his nomination papers that his party would sit in the opposition in case it failed to win an absolute majority. In other words, he gave her to understand that the party was not on a strong wicket owing to the incumbency factor.
The party cadres had hoped in 2008 that the NC under the leadership of Omar Abdullah would do well in the Assembly elections to be held that year. Their hope had stemmed from the fact that the NC remained in opposition for six long years and that it would exploit the weaknesses and failures of the PDP-Congress and Congress-PDP Governments, but it didn't happen. What happened was to the contrary. The NC again won 28 seats and the only difference that time was that Omar Abdullah could make it to the Assembly from the Ganderbal constituency. The PDP remained at the helm between November 2002 and November 2005 and the Congress led the state Government between November 2005 and July 7, 2008. The PDP increased its tally from 18 in 2002 to 21 in 2008 and the Congress tally went down by three seats. It is a different story that Omar Abdullah became Chief Minister with the support of the Congress party.
The fact of the matter is that Farooq Abdullah is helpless. He is not in a position to dictate terms and control the party. Obviously, it is advantage People's Democratic Party, which has already declared its patron and former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed as its Chief Ministerial candidate. It is too well-known that the PDP leadership's confidence has increased manifold after its victory in Kashmir in Lok Sabha election. |
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