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| Omar Abdullah has given up on J&K Assembly poll | | | Hari Om | 11/4/2014 11:15:55 PM |
| Indeed, Omar Abdullah has failed to take off or click despite his being in politics for more
than 15 years now. He is the other face of Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav - all foreign
educated - who are also sitting on the demise of the Congress and the Samajwadi Party, respectively.
Working president of the ruling National Conference (NC) and outgoing Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on November 1 virtually accepted defeat even before contesting the scheduled Assembly elections. He acknowledged, without mincing words, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's wave is sweeping the State and it would not be surprising if the BJP achieves its stated goal of 44+ in the upcoming Assembly election.
Omar Abdullah, who is sitting on the ruins of the Kashmir's religio-political organisation (founded by his grandfather Sheikh Abdullah at the behest of Jawaharlal Nehru on June 11, 1939 to weaken Maharaja Hari Singh, a nationalist), was so candid during his exclusive interview to a private news channel NewsX, that he catalogued all the factors which are working against his outfit and pose a live challenge to its very survival.
The visibly shaken and perturbed Omar Abdullah, inter-alia, said, "I am not in denial mode. I am fighting the coming election all alone. I have no ally. My father (Farooq Abdullah) is unwell. (Farooq Abdullah has undergone kidney surgery in London.) He is not there to advise me. He will not campaign for the NC. The NC doesn't have many star campaigners. I have to campaign for the party in all the 87 Assembly constituencies. My single-point agenda is to lead the party in the election. The Congress didn't allow the coalition to settle fully. I faced many difficulties. The Congress created difficulties for me. I couldn't achieve what I wanted to. I wanted revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Home Minister P Chidambaram backed me to the hilt on this issue, but the UPA Government buckled under BJP pressure and scuttled the move."
Omar Abdullah further said: "J&K is a difficult State. It has three distinct regions. Jammu is Hindu majority. Ladakh is Buddhist majority. The BJP could perform well both in Jammu and Ladakh. The BJP has many star campaigners. The Modi wave is there. Modi has galvanised the BJP in the State. There are four-cornered contests in Kashmir. The BJP can achieve its mission. The People's Democratic Party (PDP) is helping the BJP. Voters are the chief determinants. It is for them to appreciate or not appreciate my work as Chief Minister."
Whatever Omar Abdullah said was self-explanatory and he needs to be appreciated for his plain-speaking on a national television. He should also be appreciated for the reason that he perhaps for the first time admitted that Kashmir doesn't constitute the State of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh and that all the three are historically, culturally, ethnically, geographically, politically and linguistically distinct.The interview that Omar Abdullah gave at this critical juncture would at the same time further embolden the already upbeat BJP and damage the poll prospects of the already rather discredited and unpopular NC, which is also known for institutionalising corruption. Political pundits, who personally watched this interview, would surely call Omar Abdullah a greenhorn in politics, which he is despite the fact that he has been in the thick of politics since the days he joined Vajpayee's Ministry as Minister of State for External Affairs. Omar Abdullah made certain statements he should not have made considering the fact that a sense of defeatism had already gripped the party leadership, party cadres and party supporters.
Indeed, Omar Abdullah has failed to take off or click despite his being in politics for more than 15 years now. He is the other face of Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav - all foreign educated - who are also sitting on the demise of the Congress and the Samajwadi Party, respectively. It was not the first occasion when Omar Abdullah committed serious blunders and himself jeopardised the interests of his party.
Omar Abdullah has committed such faux pas a number of times in the past as well. For example, after filing his nomination papers for the Ganderwal Assembly constituency in 2002, Omar Abdullah, who led the party in the election from the front that time also, told Barkha Dutt of NDTV 24X7 that the NC would sit in the Opposition if voted out of power by the electorate. He made this statement at a time when the NC had 57 out of 87 members in the Assembly and was at the helm of affairs. He himself lost the election to a small time politician and PDP candidate. As if what he had told Barkha Dutt was not enough to damage the party, he made a highly provocative statements against Maharaja Hari Singh during an election rally, held at Samba (Jammu).
The statement outraged the sensitivities of the Dogras of Jammu province, who held, and continue to hold, Maharaja in highest esteem. The result was that the NC was wiped out in this province. It could win only 28 seats, including 4 out of 37 from Jammu, as against its 1996 tally of a whopping 57. And look at the manner in which Omar Abdullah quit the Ganderbal Assembly constituency two days ago and decided to seek election from two new Assembly constituencies in Kashmir, Sonawar and Beerwah. His decision to shift from Ganderbal Assembly constituency, the Abdullah family represented for more than three decades, and taste political waters in two new constituencies has virtually sealed the fate of the NC.
His decision is being interpreted in the state as "a last nail in the coffin of the NC".Had Omar Abdullah learned the art of politics, he would not have quit the Ganderbal constituency. It would have been a defendable political step had he contested both from the Ganderbal and another constituency. Such a decision would not have provided a handle to his arch-rivals like president of PDP Mehbooba Mufti to taunt him and say that Omar Abdullah fled away from the Abdullah family's bastion because he was mortally afraid of a humiliating defeat. In sum, it can be said the NC is destined to face the biggest ever defeat in its long electoral history and the BJP could again create history in the State like it did in the Lok Sabha election by getting the highest number of votes and all the three Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Ladakh. It would be no exaggeration if someone were to say that the NC is not just down but also out. Courtesy: www.niticentral.com. |
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