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| Congress NC's B-team, losing its credibility | | Yousuf's Death | | Rustam
JAMMU, Oct 4: The Congress party about which objective and serious commentators are writing its obituaries has been playing a dubious role in the sensitive State of Jammu and Kashmir. It is generally believed that it is the Congress which is responsible for the troubles the country has been facing in the state since 1947. In other words, the general perception in the country is that the Congress is responsible for the "Kashmir problem". The perception is not based on heresy. It is based on hard facts. No need to refer to here those hard facts, as everything is in public domain.
But it is desirable to reflect on what the Congress has done in the state between January 2009 and till date. Such an exercise would help the esteemed readers of Early Times conclude that the Congress has not learned any lesson from the sins it committed before 2005 and that it continues to behave irresponsibly, thus vindicating those who have been dismissing this party as the National Conference's B-team and questioning its very credibility and usefulness.
Ever since January 5, 2009, NC leader and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has been making controversial statements in and outside the state legislature. Some of the statements were so outrageous that had he made such statements in any other country of the world, he would have been immediately sacked, summarily tried and brought to justice to produce the moral effect.
He, for example, not once, but several times, questioned the very accession of the state with India and expressed his no-confidence in the Indian Constitution and Indian laws overlooking the fact that he was holding a constitutional office. (He and his party want withdrawal of all the central laws from the state so that a local oligarchy is re-established in the state as it existed before August 9, 1953, when Sheikh Abdullah was dethroned and arrested for activities considered harmful. The NC has prepared a report to this effect.) But the Congress with whose senseless support Omar Abdullah was holding, and continues to hold, the highest executive office in the state either feigned ignorance and displayed indifference to the Chief Minister's deliberate onslaughts on the national unity and integrity and political and constitutional organization of the country, or it shamelessly swung solidly behind Omar Abdullah and defended him. Everyone knows that Home Minister P Chidambaram and Foreign Minister S M Krishna had publicly endorsed the Chief Minister's accession-not-merger formulation.
The Chief Minister not only questioned umpteen times the very accession of the state with India and rationale behind the introduction of central laws in the state, but he also questioned from time to time the very presence of the army and paramilitary forces in the state and contemptuously dismissed the anti-terror laws as "draconian". The rudderless, the leaderless and the directionless Congress leadership either remained mum or it supported the Chief Minister saying India was a democratic country and everyone had the right to express his/her views. Not just this, the Chief Minister said in 2009 in the very presence of the Prime Minister and the AICC president and UPA chairperson that "we do not need financial and employment packages; we need political package because Jammu and Kashmir is a political problem". The Congress leadership remained indifferent overlooking the fact that what the Chief Minister had said was a sort of sedition. The Congress leadership didn't have the guts to tell the erring Chief Minister that he must behave failing which he would be shown his rightful place.
But these are only a few of the several similar other examples which serve to demonstrate that the Congress is nothing but a B-team of the Congress party and that it is the NC which is playing all the shots and dictating terms. However, it was only the previous day that the Congress crossed all the lines by extending its unstinted support to the beleaguered Chief Minister against whom the PDP has unleashed a no-holds-barred campaign, coupled with a demand that he must quit the office. The PDP believes that the Chief Minister, his father and Union Minister Farooq Abdullah and Minister of State for Home Affairs Nasir Aslam Wani are directly responsible for the death of prominent NC activist Haji Syed Mohammad Yousuf. It is of the view that if a fair and impartial inquiry is to take place and if the inquiry committee is to find who were responsible for the death of Yousuf, then it would in the fitness of things that Omar Abdullah and Wani must put in their papers. The PDP calls it murder and custodial death and believes that Yousuf was eliminated because he "knew much, much more".
The Congress, which is sharing power with the NC, has the right to agree or disagree with the PDP. It can also question the PDP's modus operandi and demand. But how is it that it immediately jumped the gun and concluded that A was innocent and B was biased and politically motivated. The Chief Minister says that he has requested the High Court for a judicial probe so that the truth comes out. The PDP says jurisprudence demands the Chief Minister's exit from office and it is coupled with a suggestion that if Omar Abdullah comes clean after the probe, he can reoccupy the office. In such a situation, the best course for the Congress was to remain neutral, but it thought otherwise and once again established that it's only role is to endorse what Omar Abdullah says and does.
What has the Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said while reacting to the ongoing controversy over the death of Yousuf? He has said: "The Chief Minister has not made any attempt to suppress" and "has himself ordered a judicial probe into the custodial death of Sayeed Mohammad Yousuf. This shows he has nothing to hide". He, at the same time, contradicted himself and indicated that the Congress stood firmly with Omar Abdullah when he said: "Why should Congress join the cacophony as some opposition parties have started breast beating there". The Congress is not neutral.
The fact is that the Congress party has lost its way; it's just not in a position to hold its own. No wonder the Congress is losing its credibility in the state, nay at the national level, by the day. |
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