Early Times Report
Jammu, Sept 1: National Conference leader and former chief minister Omar Abdullah has realized that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not going to restore Article 370 and 35-A to J&K. He observed that it was not wise to raise this demand.
According to the news agency, Omar Abdullah, during an interview with the authors of the book, says that J&K is an integral part of India.
Authors of the book, ‘India Tomorrow: Conversations with the Next Generation of Political Leaders’, said, Abdullah is very clear that he won’t ask the government of the day to reverse its position on the revocation of Article 370 and Article 35 A or convert the newly formed UT back into its original position of a state.
“Why would I ask Mr. Modi to reverse what Mr. Modi has done? It’s stupid. It’s pointless. It’s just tokenism. It’s the worst form of politics because all I’d be doing is trying to appease the voters, knowing full well that nothing will come out of it. And I don’t want to do that. I think the politics of appeasement is the worst thing I can do to people here,”, authors quoting Omar Abdullah, said.
Nothing, he stressed, justifies “what India did to J&K on the 5th of August, 2019”. Not mincing his words, the 50-year-old politician said he believes Jammu and Kashmir has been treated “very, very badly” and “every single promise made to it has been broken”.
“It’s going to be very difficult for people like me to continue to justify why I believe Jammu & Kashmir must be a part of India. Delhi hasn’t left us with much to talk about,” he added.
He said his 232-day detention period has made him “bitter”, “resentful” and “angry” but it won’t change his time-tested stand that Jammu and Kashmir “is an integral part of India”. “Jammu & Kashmir is an integral part of India. As much as I would like to say that my detention and the circumstances of the 5th of August have caused me to shift my thinking on that, it hasn’t,” he said. |
