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| Did NC President shot himself on foot deliberately to trouble Omar? | | | new delhi: Has the National Conference President and union minister for new and renewable sources of energy, Dr. Farooq Abdullah shot himself on the foot?
The latest fiasco from Dr. Farooq Abdullah could spell trouble for Chief Minister Omar Abdullah if highly placed sources are to be believed.
The Congress President and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi as well as the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh are reportedly upset with the elder Abdullah. What is disturbing for the State Chief Minister is the fact that the reported anger of the UPA chairperson and the Prime Minister has come just weeks before he completes three years in office.
It is precisely because of this upsetting of the high command by Dr. Farooq Abdullah that the President of the State Pradesh Congress unit, Professor Saif-ud-Din Soz told party workers today that the decision on rotation of the chief minister's post would be taken by the Congress high command.
As per highly credible reports, the trouble erupted earlier this week when Dr. Farooq backed the Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar over Sonia Gandhi's dream project, the Food security Bill. The Union Cabinet on Tuesday was forced to defer a decision on the food security bill after Sharad Pawar and Farooq Abdullah sought more discussions on the impact of the law that would increase the government's subsidy burden by Rs 27,663 crore. Sharad Pawar maintains only the poor and underprivileged should be legally entitled to subsidized food grain.
Pawar had no supporters in the union cabinet until Dr. Farooq Abdullah suddenly came to his rescue by saying that the emerging economic scenario must be kept in mind while making such a commitment.
Sources inside the Congress party say that Sonia Gandhi expected Sharad Pawar to resist the move, but was plainly shocked after Dr. Farooq Abdullah chose to back Pawar.
Sources also said that taking a cue from Sonia Gandhi, other top Congress leaders had also now started saying that Dr. Farooq had no business in stalling major Congress initiatives. "NC has just three MP's in the Lok Sabha and yet it meddles in affairs those are far beyond it," said another Congress insider.
On Wednesday Dr. Farooq Abdullah stirred another Hornet's nest for his son when during a meeting on the Lokpal the National Conference President started talking about the ticklish issue of unaccounted funding that politicians resort to during elections.
"Why are you killing the golden goose," an agitated Abdullah was reported to have remarked to the complete discomfiture of those present during the meeting. Sources also disclosed that Dr. Abdullah said he had began by spending about Rs 15 lakh in earlier elections but the expenditure now had gone up to anything between Rs 2 to 3 crores today, which was not possible without the help from industrialists and businessmen friends.
Unmindful that even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared to be in distinct discomfort, Abdullah went on to raise the spectre of a situation where the Lokpal would soon probe the linkages to funds given by industrialist friends to politicians contesting elections. He did not even spare the Left parties, pointing out that they too raised money from unions, which would then come under the scrutiny of the watchdog.
Many political observers in New Delhi have now started to believe that Dr. Farooq may have unintentionally done what the PDP had not been able to do for the last three years, i.e. raise doubts in the eyes of the Congress President regarding the National Conference. |
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