Half hearted approach
A year is almost to complete since August 5, last year when the Union government abrogated the Article 370 and downgraded besides splitting Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories to be government directly by New Delhi.
Though much has been said and written about the issue what was missing since the past one year was the official response from the erstwhile state’s ‘major’ political force, the National Conference.
Now that the party’s Vice President and two time Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has spoken his heart out in an opinion piece in a national newspaper, several questions have risen after his statements that need immediate response from the party leadership.
National Conference has been in partnership with the BJP when Farooq Abdullah was the Chief Minister and Omar was assigned the job of a junior minister in the Vajpayee government. When the party was enjoying good ties with the central leadership why wasn’t a constitutional guarantee sought from the union government at that time to protect Article 370. This could have been achieved easily as the two had joined hands to be in power.
Secondly, now that the party vice president has openly declared that he will not contest assembly elections till the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir is not restored, why does he shy away from making this stand affiliate to that of the party’s official stand after the abrogation of Article 370 and conversion of Jammu and Kashmir into a UT.
If Omar has announced not to contest the assembly elections does this stand apply to all other NC members who at one point of time or the other participated in assembly elections or have shown willingness to do so in near future.
Given the seriousness of the statement made by Omar one cannot fathom to answer a simple query that if the NC is protesting the abrogation then what are the three Members of Parliament that are presently representing the three parliamentary constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir in the parliament doing.
The three MP’s including Omar’s father and party President Farooq Abdullah should have resigned long back as a mark of protest and should have shown their resentment quite openly rather than hiding behind some lame excuses and escaping the responsibility of taking a stand.
This dithering stand by the party leadership has once again exposed the party for its dubious stand taken at crucial junctures and for this folly the entire population in Jammu and Kashmir is paying a heavy price.
The party has a strong base in Jammu and Kashmir but maintaining and smoldering the option among the cadres in particular and the general masses takes a political will that the NC has long lost.
Perhaps it is this ambiguity that the party leaders are not taken so seriously by those who wield an authority in Delhi and elsewhere.
