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| Are they poll or political howlers? | | |
NIRBHAY JAMMUAL
The ongoing Lok Sabha election in the six constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir has remained a period of howlers from contesting parties. National Conference President, Farooq Abdullah is ahead of others in the game of dishing out howlers. While campaigning in favour the party candidates he has dubbed the PDP as the baby of the BJP. And when the PDP shared power with the Congress the same Farooq Abdullah would treat the PDP as the baby of the Congress. He had meant that the Congress had been instrumental in floating the PDP. Now that the National Conference shares power with the Congress its President, Farooq, has found it expedient to dub the PDP as the baby of the BJP.He has done so because the PDP has posed a serious challenge to the NC in the three constituencies of the Kashmir valley and Farooq Abdullah believes that it would be better to accuse the PDP of being a child of the BJP. Since he believes that the BJP is a red rag to people of Kashmir the PDP could be at the receiving end during the polling.
The same Farooq Abdullah used to describe PDP as power hungry when the PDP formed a Government in alliance with the Congress in November 2002.Now the PDP patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is trying to pay the NC leadership in the same coin when he describes National Conference a power hungry organisation. In support of his contention he has said that the National Conference has preferred to play a second fiddle to the congress in order to assume power in Jammu and Kashmir. One would like to ask Mufti Sayeed and his daughter Mehbooba Mufti whether they were not power hungry when the PDP-Congress coalition was formed in 2002.Or should we say that the Congress is power hungry. How ?It had no qualms in forging an alliance with the PDP for gaining power in 2002.Its lust for power was so strong that it agreed to giving the post of the Chief Ministership to the PDP leader, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed for first three years when the Congress had 28 MLAs against 17 of the PDP. And the same congress has forged an alliance with the National Conference to retain power. The Congress is satisfied with the power sharing exercise and has agreed again to Omar Abdullah being the Chief Minister for full six years.
Another howler. The PDP leadership believes that with the sharing of power with the Congress the National Conference had lost its regional char acter. In Jammu and Kashmir the PDP leadership believes that peoples Democratic party is the only regional party. One would like to ask the PDP leadership whether the Peoples' Democratic Party had lost the regional character when it shared power with the Congress in 2002 or the Congress lost its national character when it shared power with the PDP.
Dishing out howlers has not remained confined to the election scene only in Jammu and Kashmir. It has, on various occasions, been witnessed during the Government formation. After the Sheikh-Indira Accord of 1975 when Sheikh Abdullah regained power after 22 years of political wilderness the Congress and the National Conference remained political chums. After the Congress withdrew support to the Government led by Sheikh Abdullah in 1977 the Lion of Kashmir would describe the Congress as "worms of gutters.” He would not hesitate calling the Congress as "worms of gutters" while addressing public rallies. When Farooq Abdullah assumed power in 1982,after the demise of his father Sheikh Abdullah, he had been told by some of his trusted party men that he could win the 1983 elections only if he adopted anti-Congress postures. He did not even hesitate engineering an anti-Indira scene in the Iqbal Park where Mrs Indira Gandhi addressed a public meeting. He won the election but lost the support of Indira Gandhi who had been instrumental in getting Farooq installed as the Chief Minister when late G.M.Shah was preparing to get sworn in as head of the Government.
Indira would not forget to hit back. The Congress engineered defections in the National Conference which led to the fall of duly elected Government headed by Farooq Abdullah in July 1984.And when G.M.Shah was inst alled Chief Minister with the support of the Congress he was heard saying that "Congress key saath sau saal pahley pyaar tha or Rahegaa." And when the Congress withdrew its support to G.M.Shah, resulting in the fall of his Government, Shah did not hesitate telling his supporters that India was ruled by Brahmin imperialism. One thing is definite.So long the PDP and the National Conference remain at loggerheads the Congress would continue to draw benefits from this confrontation. In the NC-PDP feud the Congress has succeeded in playing the role of a monkey when it has found the Muftis and Abdullahs behaving like cats fighting over a loaf of bread.
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