Notwithstanding his unequivocal declaration that NC will shape a grand alliance with Congress for 2014 political battles, Omar Abdullah seems to be doubtful over any pre-poll tie-up with the party in ‘the aftermath of clandestine execution of Muhammad Afzal Guru’.
Last year, Omar had said at the foundation laying ceremony of Z-Morh tunnel on Srinagar-Leh highway that his grandfather, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah and Jawaharlal Nehru, Sheikh and Mrs Indira Gandhi and his father Dr Farooq Abdullah and Rajiv Gandhi joined hands to resolve political and developmental issues pertaining to Jammu and Kashmir and he himself was working towards the same goal. Sharing dice with Rahul Gandhi, Omar was apparently hinting towards a new bond.
Now, Omar takes digs at Delhi’s “duplicitous policies” and asserted that the clandestine execution of Afzal Guru has changed the situation radically. Party leaders say any pre-poll alliance with Congress would be suicidal for the party in post-February 9 Kashmir.
Recently, NC summoned its Working Committee meeting that unanimously passed a 10-point resolution. One of main highlights of the resolution seeks restoration of autonomy, its demand since 1953 continues to be the party’s bed rock policy and agenda. The Committee expressed its anguish over the denial of the opportunity to the family of Afzal Guru of meeting him before his execution and demanded the return of his mortal remains to the bereaved family. The party discussed the “various aspects of the poll alliance” with Congress but resolved that a decision will be taken “at an appropriate time”. It was in conflict with the earlier meeting that had authorized Dr Farooq Abdullah to take a call.
NC and Congress have a long history of political marriages and divorces. Both have hugged and parted ways repeatedly. There was a trust deficit between the two just a year after the leaders of the two parties signed the historic accord of 1975 which resulted in Sheikh Abdullah’s return to power after a gap of two decades.
The US diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks said the “strained relations” between Abdullah’s National Conference and the Congress reached “a point of confrontation” in early October 1976 over the question of timing and procedure for the civic body elections.
The historic February 1975 accord, signed by representatives of Kashmir’s then most towering leader, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi led to Abdullah’s return to power as the state’s Chief Minister.
Abdullah, who founded National Conference out of Muslim Conference, was earlier dismissed as the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir in 1953 and spent many years in jail, internment and in exile.
“A round of ‘shuttle diplomacy’ between Srinagar and Delhi resulted in a compromise between the Sheikh (Abdullah) and the Centre which appeared to satisfy both sides,” the cable filed from US embassy in New Delhi dated November 1, 1976, said. Most of the US diplomatic cables about Kashmir leaked by Wikileaks in its latest haul are already declassified.
Under the compromise reached at by the two parties, the cable says the National Conference would be allowed to win the bulk of the seats in the Municipal Councils in the Valley while four state Congress leaders were to be admitted into Abdullah’s senior cabinet.
“But a funny thing happened on the way to the swearing-in ceremony and the deal collapsed. The situation in the state has apparently returned to square one, with both the Cabinet expansion and the civic elections postponed indefinitely,” the cable said.
The US embassy believed a “new round of acrimony” may arise between the two sides following the collapse of deal. “But we strongly doubt whether Prime Minister Indira Gandhi would allow any renewed Congress-National Conference hostility to reach the point of endangering the February 1975 Kashmir accord,” it said.
Abdullah, according to the cable, wanted the civil polls to be held early so that he could consolidate his position in the state and demonstrate his strength, which the state Congress leader “presumably acting on behalf of the Centre” wanted to be indefinitely postponed.
The US cable says Sheikh Abdullah, at this moment of confrontation with the Congress party, even held out the “spectre” of forming an electoral alliance with Moulvi Mohammad Farooq’s Awami Action Committee.
