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| Congress chief Soz in the line of fire | | Revocation Of AFSPA | | Neha
Jammu, Aug 11: JKPCC chief Saif-ud-Din Soz is under severe attack. The reason is that Soz made certain comments on the AFSPA in Jammu on August 9 on the sideline of a function, organized in connection with the August 9, 1942 Quit India Movement. The function was organized at the party headquarters. Talking to reporters, Soz gave them to understand that the AFSPA could not be revoked or amended without the consent of "stakeholders" like the Army. In fact, this had been his line ever since October 2011, when Chief Minister Omar Abdullah unilaterally announced in Srinagar that he would revoke AFSPA before the Durbar offices opened in Jammu in November. It was a policy statement. Soz had not taken kindly to this act of Omar Abdullah and had registered his unhappiness over this action by going to the press and telling it that the Chief Minister did not discuss the issue with him and that the AFSPA could not be revoked without the consent of the Army involved in anti-insurgency operations.
The intervention of Soz had created a furore in the National Conference camp. The Chief Minister took on him and told him through the media that he did not think it desirable to discuss the issue with him, as he had already kept the Union Home Minister in the loop. His uncle and the then chief spokesperson of National Conference Mustafa Kamaal, too, had joined the anti-Soz crusade. He lambasted him and the Congress party as a whole. They were of the view that it was Soz and the then Army chief General VK Singh who had conspired against the NC and stalled the revocation of the AFSPA.
Soz was very mild on August 9, when he commented on the AFSPA. There was nothing in his statement which suggested that he did not share the view of the National Conference on the AFSPA. He only talked about the need of taking on board all the stakeholders. Some newspapers, however, did report that Soz had claimed that it was because of his opposition that AFSPA was not revoked. All this did not go well with a number of Kashmiri leaders, especially NC additional general secretary Kamaal, PDP spokesperson Nayeem Akhtar and CPI-M State general secretary Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami. While Akhtar reportedly said that "both the parties (NC and Congress) are unwilling to seek its (AFSPA) removal from State" and "this is a mock fight between the two parties to score points", Tarigami said "he was not expecting such a statement from Soz".
However, it was Kamaal who was highly bitter while reacting to the statement of Soz on the AFSPA. He not only attacked him and accused him of widening the gulf between the NC and New Delhi, but also said that the "NC has no principal partnership with Congress and are in coalition just to run the State". He also reportedly said that the "statement of Soz created distance between the people of State and New Delhi and played spoil sport over the Kashmir specific Confidence Building Measures (CBM's) started by Government of India (GoI) in last few years". Besides, he asserted that Soz and others in the Congress party are creating a situation that forces the National Conference to come out of the Government. He said many other things against Soz and a few other local Congress leaders and left none in any doubt that there is nothing that is common between the NC and the Congress.
Interestingly, Soz yesterday clarified that he is not opposed to the revocation of the AFSPA and blamed a section of media for misquoting him. The clarification given by Soz clears all the cobwebs of confusion and establishes that there is no fundamental difference between him and the NC leadership as far as the AFSPA is concerned. The statement of Soz might cool the tempers in Kashmir. Leave alone the impact of his clarification on the Jammu's political scene.
The moral of the story is that all in the Valley are one when it comes to Kashmir. Another moral of the story is that the attitude of the Congress towards the AFSPA has changed with the superannuation of General VK Singh. This does not augur well for the people of the State. It's time for the Army to put its foot down and defeat those who are demanding revocation of the AFSPA to achieve their goal. |
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