| Passing buck to Supreme Court, party trying to change Article 370’s entire discourse | | Is NC trying to kill two birds with a single stone ? | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Aug 29: Killing two birds with a single stone is a perfect English adage that could typify the present strategy of Kashmir’s National Conference which in order to remain in central government’s good books is passing the buck of Article 370 to country’s top court.
The strategy, as per the National Conference can save its skin and present it as a peoples’ well-wisher in the public eye in Kashmir and at the same time, the party can present itself as no antagonistic in the eyes of central government. The party can simply claim that can present itself as more loyal to the government of India by claiming that it raised no political voice against its August 5 decision and succeeded in channelizing the political discourse around Article 370 to the Supreme Court in entirety. At the same time, it can masquerade itself as a fighter for the special status in peoples’ eyes, telling them that they fought the battle for their identity in the country’s top court. “In both ways, NC is playing a ball with people of Jammu and Kashmir and at the same with the central government also. It wants to keep one bird in hand and another in the bush,” says a senior political functionary here.
On Saturday, a high level meeting of National Conference chaired by its patriarch Dr Farooq Abdullah was held at its party office. The agenda of the meeting was as per news reports totally focused on discussions for strategy to be adopted for contesting the case filed in the supreme court of the country against abrogation of article 370 and article 35 A and also the J&K Reorganisation Act 2019 Enacted to divide the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state.
Besides Dr Farooq Abdullah, those who attended the meet were Omar Abdullah, Ali Mohmmad Sagar, Mustafa Kamal, Abdul Rahim Rather, Mohammad Shafi Uri, Choudhary Mohammad Ramzan, Mian Altaf, Mir Saifullah, Sakeena Itoo, Shameema Firdous, Nisar Aslam, Aga Ruhullah, Qamar Ali Akhoon, Haneefa Jan, Shami Oberoi, of political affairs committee from Jammu region are participating via video conference, the members from Kashmir and Ladakh are physically attending the meeting.
“The important thing in the meeting was that Aga Ruhullah who had left the party and resigned from the post of chief spokesman attended the meeting and was part of the entire deliberations. More important is that NC is playing very same this time. If Supreme Court tomorrow rejects the case and upholds the decision of the central government, the party will have no objection to it. It is all a very tricky affair,” says a middle rung leader of the party while wishing to remain anonymous as he was not authorized to speak on the issue.
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