Indian Prime Ministers went back on their promises: Farooq Abdullah

SRINAGAR — National Conference patron and member parliament, Dr Farooq Abdullah today said that first Indian Prime Minister had promised a plebiscite for Jammu and Kashmir. However, they went back on their promise.

While addressing the media, he said the first prime minister of India promised us plebiscite but went back on it. He added that another Prime Minister Narasimha Rao had said that sky is the limit and on the floor of the House, he promised autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir but it was never given.

“Narsimha Rao told on the floor of the house that autonomy will be given to Jammu and Kashmir after we told him that we have not asked Independence but autonomy,” Farooq Abdullah said.

“I tell you frankly, there is level of mistrust and that mistrust has to be removed and how you will remove it, you have to decide,” he said.

Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah were talking to reporters at their Gupkar residence on Saturday.

Farooq Abdullah while talking about the All Party Meeting said, “Meeting with PM Narendra Modi was good. Parties have put their state of affairs in front of him. It was the first step from his side that how can we build better circumstances in J-K and start a political process.”

Omar Abdullah made it clear that they put forth the agenda of Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) before the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Who says Gupkar Alliance agenda has been undone. It would have been undone if we would have said before the PM that we have accepted the abrogation of special status and let us move forward but we clearly told him we don’t accept what was done in August 2019. What NC and PDP told the PM and the HM was no different from what we said in Srinagar, which is, what they did was wrong, and a large percentage of the population was unhappy,” he said, adding that they were not called at the meeting as an alliance.

He said they seconded with the opinion of the Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad who told Prime Minister that there will be delimitation, followed by restoration of statehood and only after that the elections in Jammu and Kashmir will be talked about. “There (New Delhi) agenda was ‘Delimitation-Election-Statehood’ but we laid emphasis on ‘Delimitation-Statehood-Election.”

Omar Abdullah added, “Azad sahab (Ghulam Nabi Azad) had spoken on behalf of all of us that we don’t accept this timeline – we don’t accept delimitation, election, statehood, we want delimitation, statehood and then election. If you want to hold polls, you’ll have to restore statehood first,” said Omar Abdullah.

While responding to a question, Omar Abdullah said, “Not only Mehbooba Mufti but Farooq sahab also said that it took 70 years for BJP to succeed in their agenda of abrogation of Article 370. We won’t back off from our mission, even if it takes us 70 weeks or 70 months or more time,” Omar Abdullah said.

He said they will keep on raising the matter related to Article 370. “The matter being subjudice won’t stop us to discuss it. BJP pushed the agenda of Ram Temple even though the matter of Babri Masjid Demolition case was in the Supreme Court. We all talked about abrogation of Article 370 in the meeting. Unfortunately, only Ghulam Nabi Azad and Muzafar Hussain Beigh said that they can’t say anything about it as it is sub-judice.”

Omar Abdullah further said that there has been no fresh approach to the National Conference from the Delimitation Commission. “As far as Delimitation Commission is concerned, the party has made it very clear – they have authorized Doctor sa’ab (Farooq Abdullah) to take a view as and when necessary. There has been no fresh approach to the National Conference from the Delimitation Commission,” he said.