KLNEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
Condemning National Conference (NC) President Dr Farooq Abdullah’s remarks that ‘exchanging militants for Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s daughter compromised national interest’, senior Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader and Education Minister Naeem Akhtar Thursday termed it as shameful saying Dr Abdullah has tried to degrade women folk by his remarks.
Talking to KNS Akhtar said, “He (Farooq) doesn’t perhaps realise the sensitivities of the society which has given him and his party a big political space despite their turnabouts and compromises.”
“His (Farooq’s) remarks are offending for women folk. One would have expected better from him as a grandfather, as a father and as a brother and especially from someone carrying a vital organ donated by his wife. He has tried to degrade the womenfolk as a sex symbol,” he said.
Contradicting Farooq that he resigned in protest against release of militant in exchange of Rubiya Sayeed, Akhtar said, “Farooq Abdullah never resigned when the kidnapping episode happened. That didn’t provoke his resignation. That (kidnap) episode happened in first week of December 1989 and he (Farooq) resigned on January 20, 1990. His resignation was on entirely different issue which he has also acknowledged. When he was overwhelmed by events triggered by his own follies which included rigging of elections in 1987, it was the effect of that he had to leave the office in disgrace.”
Stating that Farooq Abdullah and his party has been rejected by the people of Jammu and Kashmir, the PDP leader said, “he (Farooq) still thinks his clowning around would impress Kashmiris who have rejected him and his party not once but more than once in recent past and uprooted them from power. Now to find relevance he is petitioning through his friends and well-wishers like (A S) Dulat and trying to reach out to new constituencies which he thinks can have him reinstalled as only nationalist that Kashmir has produced.”
“But he (Farooq) should know that times have changed and it is era of democracy where everybody has to fight for space. At this stage of life Farooq Abdullah should have adapted a more dignified way to retrieve his political relevance which is the right of any politician. But instead he is trying to market his Casanova image about which nobody is ever in doubt,” Akhtar said and added Farooq is now trying to sell and market “so-called heroics for the sake of the country.”
On Farooq’s assertions on Kandhar episode, Akhtar said, “Dulat has exposed him (Farooq) as to how he was mollified and I would not like to comment on that. What it cost governor Saxena to led Farooq Abdullah drop his objections that is embarrassing even for me as a Kashmiri. I find it too embarrassing for me even to mention how our elected Chief Minister was mollified and what it cost the Raj Bhavan at that I will not even mention.”
