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| Omar goes too far…… emabrassing for Farooq? | | Abdullah v/s Abdullah | | Vijay Gupta
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Oct 9: The curious case of Abdullah V/s Abdullah originated on July 23,2008, the day after Omar Abdullah had made a brief but controversial speech on the floor of Parliament while speaking against a no-confidence motion brought about by the opposition parties against the then UPA government headed by S. Man Mohan Singh. Previous night, interpreting the contents of Omar's speech differently, a vocal section of the national print and electronic media had bestowed upon the younger Abdullah the status of a youth icon next only to Rahul Gandhi. On this 23rd day of July ,2008, on return from Delhi while addressing a large gathering of his workers in Kupwara an elated Omar had boasted, I am not one of those who say something in Valley and say some thing entirely different when in Delhi" thereby publicly embarrassing his father Dr. Abdullah. Again after October/November 2008 elections when it emerged that his party National Conference would be forming a coalition with the Congress Party, he seemed to have staged a 'bloodless' coup against his father and became the Chief Minister of this state. And now by contradicting in the State Legislative Assembly the repeatedly expressed stand of his father that the accession of Kashmir to India is final, the junior Abdullah once again embarrassed his father.
This public political posturing of the father and son duo though may seem to be churlish but nevertheless is a well conceived plan to protect their respective turfs. The division of labor between them is well defined. While the senior Abdullah will market their expertise in the Centre by using his well famous nationalistic rhetoric (his marketing skills have also been recognized by the BCCI which had made him the Chairman of a very important marketing sub committee last week), the junior Abdullah would focus on combating PDP in the valley in their endeavor to woo separatists. By, questioning the very accession of Jammu and Kashmir with India which his grand father Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah had, after a protracted interlude, considerable thought and keeping the best interests of people Jammu and Kashmir in mind , agreed to when he took over the reins of power from the then Congress Chief Minister Mir Qasim in 1975, Omar Abdullah has gone too far. By this statement he has not only embarrassed the senior Abdullah but his political backers in Centre both Rahul Gandhi and the Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh too. Kashmiris by and large are gullible but they are not naive. The facade of Abdullah v/s Abdullah is too fragile. They can see through this. Jingoistic posturing is no substitute to grass incompetence.
The Congress Party particularly its State unit finds itself in a bind. They are woefully handicapped by being junior partner in the Omar Abdullah led coalition government which had Rahul Gandhi stamp on it. It may be recalled that in December 2008 the electorate of Jammu and Kashmir had given a verdict which was virtually repeat of the 2002 verdict barring the strength of BJP representation. But unlike in 2002 when PDP/Congress coalition took more than a fortnight and some hard bargaining, in 2008 Gulam Nabi Azad, piqued with PDP over ditching him in the last year of his three-year tenure as Chief Minister, had pre-empted the shenanigans of North Block and Centre's interlocutor of more than a decade by forging an alliance with National Conference within three days paying put to years of ground work done by security agencies in bringing the separatists of moderate to not-so-moderate hues in the main political stream of the troubled state. In this post haste move made primarily out of spite for PDP Azad had made his party even forego their claim for rotational Chief Ministership. Verdict was announced on Dec 26, 2008. By December 28 NC/Congress Coalition was confirmed.
Azad's main plank in selling an NC/Congress coalition to Congress high command is believed to have been -- a young Omar as Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir would be 'trial run for Rahul Gandhi as PM. Sadly Omar Abdullah has failed both as a youth icon and as a CM as well. |
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