National Conference Working President and former Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah on Saturday said the State Government’s proposal to go ahead with allocating hundreds of kanals of land in the Valley for a proposed ‘Sainik Colony’ could be a ruse to settle non-State-subjects in Kashmir and hence bypass Article 370.
Addressing party leaders, delegates and workers at Baramulla today, Abdullah said the PDP-BJP Government’s glaring contradictions on the Sainik Colony proposal had given rise to apprehensions about their underlying political motive.“From denying that land is being provided to the ‘Sainik Colony’ to the Administration officially writing to concerned officers to identify land for the colony, the PDP-BJP Government of Mehbooba Mufti has come a full circle. Considering their track-record over the past more than a year, people have serious apprehensions and rightly so. The Chief Minister continues to be vague on this issue and it seems has been implicitly ordered to not interfere in this matter,” the NC Working President said in Baramulla today.“Is the Mehbooba Mufti Government trying to re-enact the 2008 turmoil where a PDP Government set the State on fire in violating the State’s special status by giving away hundreds of kanals of land to the Shrine Board in violation of legal norms, Article 370 and various inviolable constitutional provisions? There seems to be an uncanny similarity between what PDP did in 2008 and what the PDP-BJP Government is trying to do today with the ‘Sainik Colony’ proposal,” Omar Abdullah said.
The National Conference Working President said Mehbooba Mufti’s shocking exclusion from the high-level meeting on J&K chaired by the Union Home Minister in New Delhi was an unmistakable example of her dis-empowerment and how she was squarely responsible for bartering away the sanctity and constitutional mandate of the Chief Minister’s office to remain in power. “In an important meeting where developmental projects in J&K, the State’s security scenario and other vital issues were discussed, the State was represented by the Honourable Governor instead of the elected Chief Minister. It seems her silence on the ‘Sainik Colony’ issue was also a result of her complicity in such political manoeuvres that are aimed at weakening the State’s special status and altering its demographic character,” Omar Abdullah further said.“We all saw how the Chief Minister cowered into silence and rank inaction in both the NIT as well as the Handwara incidents while as the Central Government dealt with both these situations directly, completely bypassing the State Administration as well as the elected Chief Minister who remained missing from the State on both these occasions. This seems to have become a norm now and the most tragic part is that Mehbooba Mufti sees no problem in her open, public marginalization by New Delhi and is hence endorsing how the Chief Minister’s position is being undermined. She seems to have been reduced to be a non-essential formality in the scheme of things,” the National Conference Working President added in his address.
“Rather than focusing on vital and crucial matters confronting the State, the Chief Minister is busy presiding over meetings to re-organize stationary and furniture in the Civil Secretariat, which is when she is not occupied with her photo-opportunities to cut ribbons for projects pioneered by the previous Government or laying foundation stones for projects without funds having been earmarked for them. This is the same Government that forced our people to come out on the streets to protest for their basic right of nutrition and food and continued to humiliate them by asking them to level with the wisdom of this Government’s ruthlessness,” the NC Working President added.Condemning PDP’s never-ending “U-turns”, Omar Abdullah said the PDP-BJP Government’s backpedalling on formal promises of revisiting AFSPA revocation and the return of power projects to the State were iconic examples of how the sacrosanct mandate of the people of J&K was violated and sold at the altar of power so that first Late Mufti Sahab and now Mehbooba Mufti could get to occupy the Chief Minister’s chair.“PDP’s actions of opportunism and greed have been in stark contrast to its pre-election rhetoric and grandstanding. The same Mehbooba Mufti who publicly said that BJP could never be acceptable to the people of the State has gone on to assume the role of ridiculing Muslim countries and societies for their internal struggles. This is a poignant, almost poetic example of her hypocrisy and defines the politics of her party,” Abdullah said. (KNS)