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Omar Abdullah blames Mufti Mohammad Sayeed for abrogation of Article 370 in J&K
Abdullah said Sayeed made a mistake by forming a coalition government in the Valley with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister and National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah on Wednesday slammed J&K Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s ‘one wrong decision’ for the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35-A.
Abdullah said Sayeed made a mistake by forming a coalition government in the Valley with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“I told Mufti Sahib I had no greed for power. I had already served for six years as a chief minister and I told him that we don’t want any of our MLAs and MLCs as ministers in the government. I told him that we will support you unconditionally, but please don’t bring them (BJP) here (in J&K),” Abdullah was quoted as speaking at a public gathering by news agency ANI.
Quoting a famous couplet to take a jibe at Sayeed, the National Conference leaders said, “He (Mufti Mohammad Sayeed), however, might have had some compulsions at that time. ‘Lamhon ne khata ki, sadiyon ne saza paayi.’ Now, we do not know for how long we will be punished for that one wrong decision because not even a single promise made to us post-revocation of Article 370 has been fulfilled,” Omar said at a gathering in Kishtwar.
The former chief minister said he feared the BJP would “advantage” of weaknesses of political parties in Kashmir. “They (BJP) took advantage of our weakness and I knew it. That’s why I offered my hand of friendship to late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed sahib. Soon after 2014 assembly elections, I had cautioned him that the path being chosen by him (exploring possibilities of forming a coalition government with the BJP) would be very dangerous for Kashmir and we may not survive by this decision of yours.”
Abdullah claimed that had the the National Conference have come to power in the previous assembly elections, there would have been no revocation of the special status granted to Kashmir and no land allotted under the Roshni Act would have been taken back and no jobs would have gone to the outsiders.
In the 2014 assembly elections, the PDP had won 28 seats while th BJP got 25 seats, the NC 15 and the Congress 12.
On February 27, 2015, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had sealed an alliance between the PDP and the BJP to form a coalition government.
On March 1, 2015, Sayeed took oath as the chief minister of the PDP-BJP combine in a ceremony that was attended by PM Modi and other leaders.
However, on June 19, 2018, the three-year-old coalition government collapsed after the BJP pulled out of the alliance over worsening security scenario and bitter political feuds between the two.
