Alliance With Congress Wasn’t Easy Task: Omar Abdullah

Srinagar: As almost every political party in Jammu and Kashmir including his National Conference (NC) is caught in an ‘aaya ram, gaya ram’ kind of a situation ahead of the Assembly polls, former chief minister Omar Abdullah on Friday said that surrendering some of the seats to its alliance partner was not an easy decision.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to have a pre-poll alliance with the Congress and sacrifice some of the seats where we knew only the NC could give a tough fight. However, we did it because it was necessary to ensure the BJP is defeated in this election,” Mr. Abdullah said while addressing party workers here.

He was, however, happy to note that the immediate positive impact of the NC and Congress joining hands has been the former chief minister and Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) leader Ghulam Nabi Azad has run away from the battlefield. “The first impact of our joining hands was witnessed when Azad Sahab announced he will not be campaigning for his party and asked its candidates to decide whether to contest or not,” Mr. Abdullah said.

He asserted that the upcoming elections is not his fight or that of other NC leaders alone but a collective fight of the people of J&K. “If we have to undo the wrongs done to us, it will not only benefit us, but every citizen of J&K. We are fighting this battle collectively for our state and that is why we joined hands with the Congress,” he said.

Meanwhile, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti took a dig at Mr. Abdullah, asserting that it was his NC which had in the past declared elections as ‘halal’(permissible) and ‘haram’ (forbidden) as per its own convenience.

“When the NC gets power, elections become halal for it and when the party loses, they turn haram,” she said while speaking to reporters here.

Ms. Mufti was responding to an earlier statement of the NC vice president Mr. Abdullah in which he had, while reacting to proscribed right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami’s fielding its former members as independents in the Assembly elections, said that it was their shift from what was once haram to now being considered halal.

The PDP leader said, "I am surprised that the NC considers J&K as its empire. In the 1987 elections, it indulged in irregularities because it did not want any third force to come forward. If the Jamaat-e-Islami wants to contest elections, it is a good thing. The government should lift the ban on it and all its institutions, properties that have been sealed or confiscated by the government agencies should be restored to it”.