What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
SRINAGAR: On December 6th, the vice president of the Jammu Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) Omar Abdullah stated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has harmed the bond between J&K and the rest of the country with the abolishment of Article 370 provisions.
Omar said, “The delay in holding assembly elections in the Union territory is taking Jammu and Kashmir on a path of destruction.
He further added, “People have been deprived of their right to vote since 2014. It is a strange kind of fixed match. When you ask the government, they will tell you that the Election Commission has to decide. When you ask the Election Commission, they say they will have to decide after consulting the government”.
Reacting to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement in Parliament, Abdullah said that the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh are not happy with the decision to revoke the special status of the former State.
“There is no doubt that they did it and they have hurt the sentiments of people while doing it. The promises to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 were not made by a person but by the country. The bond was not between a person in Delhi and J&K, it was a link between a country with this State. If they think that harming this bond deserves congratulations, then let them congratulate each other. The truth is that people in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh are not happy with the steps taken on August 5, 2019,” Abdullah told reporters on the sidelines of a party convention in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district.
He further said that the people of Jammu and Kashmir will show their unhappiness when the assembly elections are held. He said, “This was proved in Kargil (LAHDC polls). It was proved in DDC (District Development Council) polls and we will prove it in the assembly elections also”.
On a DMK leader’s ‘gaumutra’ comment that triggered a row, Abdullah said that he should not have said those words which have hurt the sentiments of the people.
“You don’t believe in their religion but there are crores of people who believe in it. Why make fun of them? Will our brothers and sisters from Tamil Nadu be happy if someone amongst us said something like that? We should respect the religious beliefs of others and we should not say anything that will hurt anyone’s religious feelings,” he said.
On the defeat of Congress in the recent assembly polls, Abdullah said that the opposition bloc INDIA did not contest these elections. He said, “The results we saw, perhaps even if the INDIA alliance had contested together, there would not have been much of a difference in Chhattisgarh and MP. The results in Rajasthan would likely have been different then. In such a situation, a meeting has now been called on December 16 to see how the INDIA alliance will be prepared afresh for the parliamentary polls”.
“We will sit and discuss, we will hear from the Congress and see whether they feel they committed a mistake,” he added.
