SRINAGAR: Jammu Kashmir’s five-time former Chief Minister and National Conference (NC) President Farooq Abdullah has strongly refuted the claims made in former RAW chief A S Dulat’s upcoming book The Chief Minister and the Spy, calling them “completely false,” “deeply hurtful,” and “a cheap stunt” to promote book sales.
In the soon-to-be-released memoir, Dulat asserts that Abdullah privately supported the abrogation of Article 370, the constitutional provision that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir until its controversial revocation on August 5, 2019. He also alleges that the National Conference might have aided the move had the Centre consulted it beforehand.
Reacting sharply, Farooq Abdullah said, “Dulat sahab’s book is full of so many inaccuracies, I can’t even begin to describe them. It’s unfortunate—if he really considers me a friend, then he wouldn’t have written such things.” He dismissed as “completely false” Dulat’s claim that Abdullah asked him in 1996 who should be made Chief Minister when the NC returned to power. “The author suggests I sought his advice on forming my Cabinet. That’s fiction. I was sworn in with 25 ministers, not a small group as he alleges,” Abdullah added.
Labelling the book “a figment of imagination,” Abdullah rejected the suggestion that the NC would have endorsed any resolution supporting the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. “This is absurd. At the time of abrogation, both I and Omar were detained for months—because our opposition to the move was well-known,” he said. “It was I who took the initiative to forge the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration to resist the move and protect the constitutional position of Jammu and Kashmir.”
He also ridiculed the suggestion that the NC sought closer ties with the BJP. “That is an absolute lie. I’m not someone who would ever align with a party that is out to destroy my own,” he said.
Visibly hurt, Abdullah questioned Dulat’s motives and their supposed friendship. “He calls himself a friend. But as they say, ‘Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart, and the wound lasts a lifetime.’ His inaccuracies, written for cheap publicity, will leave that lasting wound,” he said.
Asked if he had reviewed the manuscript, Abdullah said he gave up halfway. “It is full of inaccuracies. After a while, I thought I was reading a work of fiction and left it.”
In his memoir, Dulat portrays Abdullah as someone who often tried to stay on the “right side of Delhi,” albeit on his own terms. He recounts a meeting between Abdullah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi just before the August 5 decision and quotes Abdullah’s alleged reaction after the move: “Kar lo agar karna hai… par yeh arrest kyu karna tha?”
Dulat contrasts Farooq’s leadership style with that of his son Omar Abdullah, claiming Omar tends to “please Delhi,” while Farooq seeks a “level playing field” but always “does it his way.” He also narrates a phone call from Intelligence Bureau officials during a Goa vacation, highlighting what he sees as Delhi’s poor handling of its relationship with Farooq Abdullah. “Try as Delhi might to dismiss him, it can never ignore Farooq,” Dulat writes.
Farooq Abdullah’s denials, however, have not quelled political tremors in the Valley. Sajad Lone, chief of the People’s Conference, called Dulat’s claims “credible” and said he was not surprised. “Coming from Dulat sahib makes this revelation very credible. He is virtually Farooq sahib’s alter ego,” he said on X.
Lone accused the NC of playing the “victim card,” while privately collaborating with the BJP. “Their MLAs will visit BJP leaders privately, while enacting theatre publicly. The August 4, 2019, meeting with the PM was never a mystery for me. It now seems 2024 was a prize for services rendered in 2019,” he alleged.
Peoples Democratic Party leader Iltija Mufti also weighed in, claiming that Abdullah “chose to stay in Kashmir instead of Parliament to help normalise gutting of J&K’s constitution.”
Waheed Para, a senior PDP leader, said Dulat’s book has stripped the National Conference of its “last remaining veil.” In a scathing critique, he said the NC’s outrage over Article 370 was merely a performance. “Generation after generation, the NC has built its political fortunes on the back of our dispossession. Dulat’s disclosure is not a shock—it is confirmation,” Para said.
As Dulat’s memoir heads for release on April 18, it has reignited long-standing questions about the political alignments and behind-the-scenes manoeuvring that preceded the revocation of Article 370. But for Abdullah, the claims are not only false but a betrayal by someone he once considered a friend.
