news details |
|
|
| For Omar Congress-NC alliance in 1986 was bad but in 2008 it is politically fit | | |
Early Times Report
Jammu,November 4:-Nothing definite can be said about political permutation and combination.If in politics there can hardly be any permanent friends there can equally be no room for permanent enemies.Instancs are many.And this phenomenon is not confined to any particular state in India.It is everywhere and Jammu and Kashmir has excelled in it.Those who doubt it need to refer to a TV interview from Omar Abdullah when he was union Minister of state for External Affairs.It was October 3,2001 that he was asked what were the reasons for the rise of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir.Pat came his reply.He had stated that alliance between the Congress and the National Conference had given birth to separatists in Jammu and Kashmir.He may not be totally wrong because those who were disgruntled with either the Congress or the National Conference had no ot her political forum available which they could use to air their views against the mainstream political parties.
Even some political experts had indicated that separatists were the product of the alliance between the Congress and the National Conference that was hammered out by Rajiv Gandhi and Farooq Abdullah in 1986.It was the result of this alliance that the congress and the National Conference contested the 1987 Assembly election together.In the valley the then Mulsim United Front,formed by some academicians who were sore over Jagmohans' policies,was the main opponent of the congress and the NC in the Kashmir valley.No doubt the Muslim United Front did not set the river Jehlum on fire as it could win only four Assembly seats,it,however,sowed the seeds of separatist ideology in the state.
If Omar Abdullah had in 2001 believed that the alliance between the National Conference and the Congress gave birth to separatist ideology what forces and factors had compelled him to revive the alliance soon after the Assembly elections were out in 2008 ?Even before the election results were out it was believed that the Congress and the PDP may revive its alliance,forged in 2002.This alliance had been ruptured after the Mufti led PDP withdrew support to the congress.The congress had not only felt bitter over the PDP's withdrawal of support but also of its row over the diversion of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board.There were many who believed that the possibilities of alliance between the PDP and the Congress were not very bleak because at that stage the Congress leadership was not in a mood to revive its ties with the National Conference.That it was not interested in forging an alliance with the National Conference had become evident in
2002 when
the Congress did not form a coalition Government with the National Conference when the latter had won about 28 seats against 16 by the PDP.
The agitation launched by the PDP against the land diversion had offended the Congress which had been enraged over the way the PDP leadership announced to pull out of the Government.And neither Omar Abdullah,who headed the National Conference,nor his father,Farooq Abdullah,who was the patron of the National Conference,in 2008 were opposed to forging an alliance with the Congress.Even before the Congress weighed its option for reviving alliance with the PDP the NC leadership had declared that it was ready to support the Congress for forming the Government.And when the NC leadership learnt that the Congress was in no mood to revive its alliance with the PDP the NC leaders started demanding a pound of flesh from the Congress. which was granted by way of an agreement that Omar will head the Government for six years and there would be no rotation system as was between 2002 and 2008.
NC leadership,without caring for the political repercussions on the state grabbed the opportunity that came its way by Congress announcing to form the Government in alliance with the National Conference.Possibly the leadership knew it well that those who were dismayed with the Congress and the National Conference need not join the separatists because PDP had become an effective poltical forum to accommodate anti-congress and anti-NC elements.And the NC wanted to regain power which its leadership believed was the only way to keep its main political foe,the PDP,out of power.This way if Omar Abdullah had thought in 2001 that the Congress-NC alliance had led to the growth separatists he had thought that the alliance was the most suitable political arrangement in 2008.Was he right in 2001 or in 2008 ?Future events will determine it.(eom)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
