People’s Conference (PC) chairman Sajjad Lone on Friday criticised J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah and ruling National Conference (NC) for Jantar Mantar Protest and asked NC to bring Statehood resolution in assembly first.
Lone, who is also legislator from Handwara, termed the protest as parallel with 1975 accord and said that dharnas historically produce little beyond media coverage, and suggested the protest also serves to distract from “governance failures”.
Launching an attack on the NC, Lone questioned both the timing and the real motive behind CM Omar Abdullah’s call for a sit-in at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar to press for statehood and said his party’s position has not shifted: the pre-August 5, 2019 status of Jammu and Kashmir, Article 370, Article 35A, and full statehood, remains paramount, with Article 370 the most important of the three.
“Democracy requires consensus, not unilateral calls to the street,” he said, while recalling that in early August 2019, Farooq and Omar Abdullah had travelled to Delhi without taking other parties into confidence, only for a photograph with the Prime Minister to emerge the next day along with assurances that nothing was going to change, assurances undone within forty-eight hours when Article 370 was revoked. “To this day, nobody knows what was actually said in that meeting, and that despite the public warmth shown toward the central leadership since then, the NC has never once confronted them publicly about being misled that day,” he said.
Lone further said the Jammu and Kashmir assembly may have lost its old powers but has not lost its representative character — it remains the constitutional voice of the people. “It was unacceptable that no statehood resolution had been passed in nearly two years, and that his own attempts to move such a resolution had been blocked by the Speaker on grounds that the matter was sub judice.”
{{/usCountry}}Lone further said the Jammu and Kashmir assembly may have lost its old powers but has not lost its representative character — it remains the constitutional voice of the people. “It was unacceptable that no statehood resolution had been passed in nearly two years, and that his own attempts to move such a resolution had been blocked by the Speaker on grounds that the matter was sub judice.”
{{/usCountry}}He accused the NC of inconsistency, recalling how the party rushed to present shawls to central leaders even before final election results were in, and later sent flowers to the Union home minister after Mamata Banerjee’s defeat in West Bengal, while simultaneously invoking anti-BJP rhetoric for public consumption.