Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Mar 18: Former Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah today accused PDP president Mehbooba Mufti of delaying elections in Jammu and Kashmir by not dissolving the Assembly at the time of her resignation and said that it was done to save her party.
Omar while speaking to reporters in Kulgam district of South Kashmir said: “If Mehbooba Mufti during the time of resignation would have wrote that Assembly should be dissolved, Governor would have no choice other than dissolving the Assembly and conducting elections within six months like in other States and today there would have been our own Government. But she did not try to dissolve the Assembly as she does not want elections to be conducted so that she can save her party”, he said.
The former Chief Minister said that twice State was turned into disaster for saving PDP. “Not once but twice this State was turned into disaster to save one party and today they are telling people to have faith on them. In 2014, they came here in Noorabad and told that if we have to stop BJP then vote for the PDP”, he said.
Omar said that people forgot what NC had done for them and instead chose the PDP and now are repenting. “People voted for PDP and forgot how much we did for them but what happened after, same PDP joined hands with the BJP. Till date we are repenting for that”, he said.
The NC vice president said that the embrace of Late Mufti Sayed with Narendra Modi proved detrimental to the interests of State saying that the solution to the challenges the State is facing, can only be overcome if NC is voted to power with a strong mandate.
“Several things were introduced by them like frequent crackdowns, cordon and search, operation all out, pellet guns, pepper bombs and Rules of Centre through which your ration was snatched and GST because of which prices got escalated”, he added.
Flaying the new-fangled gimmickry of Mehbooba Mufti, Omar said: “Now a days she is saying that she too might be arrested. What will she be arrested for? This assertion hints towards some tacit match fixing between BJP and PDP. We in Kashmir have been hearing a lot about match fixing.”
“I feel that the ban on JeI is thought-out match fixing between BJP and PDP to help BJP to save its face value in rest of the country and also help PDP milk the situation here in Kashmir. Nobody is going to be arrested. People are now privy to such election gimmicks and political tears as are only seen in their eyes at the time of elections,” he added.
“We didn’t see them in tears in 2016. At that time, she mocked the miseries of people with her ‘milk and toffee comments’. It is the same Mehbooba who refused to recompense the person who was used as human shield, given the fact that State Human Rights Commission had recommended a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the victim. Where was her sympathy then? Case against Mirwaiz was registered in 2017; it didn’t happen in my tenure as Chief Minister, neither during my father’s. It was she who unleashed plethora of miseries on people in the shape of decreasing the quota of ration, implementation of GST, use of pellet guns, and what not”, Omar said.
The former Chief Minister said that the new parties are formed in Kashmir under well planned strategy to divide the votes in Kashmir. “New parties are formed only in Kashmir. It has been a while since we heard that a new party has been formed in Jammu or in Ladakh region but here there had been no election when two or three parties have been formed. I think this is a well planned strategy to divide the votes here so that our voices are shattered and to weaken us”, he said.
“We don’t have to frame a manifesto for the Parliamentary elections, we will focus on Centre related issues and our main manifesto will be for Assembly elections. The elections are likely to be conducted soon after the Eid and before Amarnath yatra. Once the elections are announced, we will present our manifesto before the people”, he said.
Asked about allegations of PDP that NC is behind the volatile situation in South Kashmir, Omar said: “We are away from the Government for four years now, what have we done. When it comes to South Kashmir, this is the hub of PDP and unfortunately it has become hub of militancy now and this change happened after 2014. Before that the youngsters were not joining militancy at this rate, crackdowns were not happening and militants were not killed. When they were in power, they were claiming that we killed 200 militants, so who made South Kashmir a hub of violence. They should look into their own selves what they did in these four years. When it comes to Exit polls or Pre-poll survey, I think the only survey that matters here is the survey on the day of elections”, he said.
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