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J&K: Omar, Lone locked in war of words over Rajya Sabha election results
The NC won three seats, while the BJP managed one. BJP legislator Sat Sharma got 32 votes despite the party having only 28 members in the House
War of words broke out between chief minister Omar Abdullah and People’s Conference chairman Sajjad Lone after both accused each other for supporting BJP in Rajya Sabha polls.
The National Conference (NC) won three seats, while the BJP managed one. BJP legislator Sat Sharma got 32 votes despite the party having only 28 members in the House. It wasn’t clear where the BJP candidate had got the extra four votes from.
CM Omar accused Handwara legislator Sajjad Lone for openly supporting BJP by abstaining from voting even as Lone blamed the NC legislators, for “cross voting” and termed the polls as a fixed match between NC and the BJP.
“Handwara MLA must have some compulsion, so he abstained as he doesn’t want to vote against the BJP. Now as a professor he is releasing big reels. He must have some compulsion. Others who secretly helped should have courage to say they voted for the BJP,” Omar told reporters in Srinagar.
However, Lone said that NC was hand in glove with the BJP. “It’s a case of simple mathematics. NC tried to save the third seat instead of the required fourth. The NC voting pattern was such that even if there had been no cross voting candidate number 4 would have still lost.”
He said that all the “cross voting” has been done by the National Conference. “I say this with authority,” he said, adding that had he not abstained from voting, they (NC) would have blamed him for voting for the BJP.
Lone said that seats were never genuinely offered to Congress. “Officially, seat number 4 was presented to them (Congress) but NC ensured it was a setup for their defeat,” he said. “Congress could have mustered only around 21 votes. We had already indicated that if Congress had contested seat number three, we would have supported them not due to any leaning, but because they are a national party and could have advocated issues of Kashmiri people better,” Lone further added.
He said that NC members effectively gifted votes to BJP. “Rejected votes were deliberate, not accidental. This was a calculated, coordinated manoeuvre with Delhi, leaving no space for a fair contest,” he said.
Lone said that even in the past, NC Rajya Sabha members refrained from taking any extraordinary measures, being consistently preoccupied with trivial personal matters rather than safeguarding the people’s mandate. “From day one, their priority will be gaining private access to the Prime Minister or Home Minister. Their approach will be appeasement of Delhi, not representation of Kashmiris. They will advocate harsher measures while shedding crocodile tears here before the people.”
Lone further said that NC is the only party which before elections accused every other political party as the “agents” of the BJP. “It was fixed between NC and BJP. Today we have caught NC red-handed sitting in the lap of BJP. Our entire people should know that they had ruined an entire election by voting for the National Conference.”
When asked regarding Omar’s remarks that all NC votes were intact, Lone said, “He spread the same lies during polls and their election promises. Now nobody trusts him.”
