Daily Times

SRINAGAR: Former Indian-held Kashmir chief minister Omar Omar Abdullah believes incumbent Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti “should stay” and “restore peace” to the violence-hit state.

The National Conference leader told Rising Kashmir News his party had a number of reasons to skip the All Party Meet called by Mehbooba Mufti.

“We felt that it is pointless talking to the state government whose CM is discredited by her party,” he said. “The issue of ban on newspapers, she did not know; Burhan encounter, she did not know; excessive use of force, she did not know.”

Omar, who was the chief minister in 2010 when the state witnessed a similar uprising resulting in the killing of over 120 people, said in the past 12 to 14 days, it seemed that Mehbooba knew less and did not want to know.

“Under such circumstances, where a CM doesn’t know what’s happening in her own government, what’s the point of calling us to an APM?” he said.

While criticising the government for playing the blame game for too long, Omar said, “Over the past 12 days, her colleagues in the coalition government and in her party made concerted effort to project NC of being responsible for the current situation.

“Her spokesman and cabinet minister (Naeem Akhtar) said Burhan was the creation of Omar Abdullah’s government and there were similar allegations over the use of pellet guns and of we being the ones who are fomenting trouble.”

Omar, a scion of Abdullah family, who became the 11th and the youngest chief minister of Indian-held Kashmir in 2009, said, “Now if we are part of the problem, then how can we be part of the solution?”

Considering all these things, Omar said, he and his colleagues decided that the motive behind this meeting was less about finding a solution and more about all political parties carrying blame about what was happening in the state, and thus they had decided that it did not make sense to attend the APM.

However, he said the mainstream political parties had to work toward resolving the situation or at least play a positive role, which the National Conference was doing.

“I didn’t need any invitation from Mehbooba Mufti to make sure that NC played a positive part, which is very different from what People’s Democratic Party (PDP) did in 2010,” the former chief minister said.

“I know for a fact that PDP, if anything, added to the fire in 2010 and I also know for a fact that Mufti Muhammad Sayeed and his daughter went door-to-door in Delhi lobbying for my removal in 2010 with a single agenda: ‘Remove Omar Abdullah and 80 per cent of the problem will go away.’”

Omar said he was very careful in Delhi not to go and meet anybody because he did not want an impression that he was out to have Mehbooba removed. “She should stay, restore peace to the state and then we will see what happens,” he said.