Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and Working President National Conference Omar Abdullah on Sunday asked Peoples’ Democratic Party to be bold enough in breaking alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party if not ready to form the Government.“PDP cannot keep the issue open-ended under the garb of Confidence Building Measures, which even the coalition partner BJP doesn’t know, least to speak of the people”, Omar Abdullah told media persons at the sideline of a function held here to declare open Maruti Suzuki Nagrota Premier League Cricket Tournament, an initiative of MLA Devender Singh Rana.He said there has to be a time-frame to get the so-called CBM’s announced as the people and the state is not going to wait for them forever. The PDP, he said, should fix a deadline and if no reply is forthcoming, they should tell the BJP straight way that alliance is over and go to the people. “We are also waiting for that…to go to the people ”, he said while adding that as of now the PDP and BJP continue to be in alliance as none of them has broken it so far.“When alliance is intact and both the partners have numbers as well, where is the hitch in forming the government”, he reiterated, saying that the Agenda of Alliance had been formed by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed before taking over as Chief Minister.
When asked whether Mehbooba Mufti was scared of continuing alliance or facing the people, Omar said he that he would not like to comment on that but all that he knows is that if she is a leader, she should lead and not follow. “If she is not ready to lead the state with conviction, she should announce it and not keep the state guessing”, he said and added that after a spell of shock, she has been talking about CBMs but not spelling out these. He questioned as to why the so-called CBMs were not raked up when Mufti Mohammed Sayeed was alive. “It is a complex situation, she didn’t remember the CBMs then”, he wondered.On other options about government formation, the former Chief Minister declared that National Conference is not willing either to form government as of now or to have any relation the BJP. “We have time and again made it clear that our doors to BJP are closed; we don’t want even to discuss this; we had closed our doors a year ago and these continue to be closed even today”. He added that National Conference is being told about the alliance with NDA during the times of Atal Behari Vajpayee and said there is a huge difference between BJP of then and the BJP of now. “And the arrangement was limited at the Centre then”, he added.
Omar said that National Conference had volunteered unconditional support to Mufti Mohammed Sayeed last year only because “we believed that presence of the BJP in the government was not in the interest of the state”. He said this has actually happened during the past ten months PDP-BJP rule.To a question about Mehbooba Mufti talking about principles, the NC Working President asked where these principles had gone when they formed the government about a year ago. He said Mehbooba Mufti justified and defended the PDP-BJP alliance at two high profile seminars in New Delhi last year.He reminded Mehbooba Mufti that even as the alliance tailored by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed was the same; the people were the same; the state was the same and only if anything had changed was that of Mufti Sahib being not alive; then why she is taking so much of time in forming the government.Asked about NC’s preparedness on elections, Omar Abdullah said that his party was ready from the day the PDP-BJP formed the government because everybody knew about the fragility of this dispensation from day one.On political appointments to various corporations and bodies, the former Chief Minister said morally they all must put in their papers to the Governor or should be removed. He envisioned a prolonged spell of the Governor’s rule, citing the appointment of Advisors. (KNS)