That conviction was apparently at the back of his mind when Farooq made half hearted references to the autonomy in the last phase of campaign perhaps after becoming conscious of the odds against him. Beyond that it was only the paranoid tu tu mein mein with his bete noire PDP. On the development front, employment, security and long term role of central forces, tourism, centre state relations, cross LOC matters neither Farooq nor his chief minister son Omar had any thing to contribute to the discourse.
The National Conference was bequeathed by its founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah to his son as a family corporate which it continues to be and manage its estate called Kashmir. But he had taken enough care to relate it to the political sentiment of the people. Ghulam Ahmed the secretary to Sheikh Abdullah has divested the political will of Sheikh of its authenticity in his recently published book in which he plainly says the late leader had not even seen it. It was literally rubber stamped and distributed among the heartbroken mourners on Sheikh’s chaharum at Hazratbal.
I still remember how the loyals and faithfuls of Sheikh grabbed the printed copies of the will to preserve it as some kind of a talisman. They believed it to be from the heart of the departed leader as the ghost writer had used Sheikh’s favourite terms like comparing National Conference with a political and ideological fortress of Kashmir. They did not know this was a joint venture of Ghulam Ahmed, Yaseen Beg and H L Sharma as Ahmed candidly reports. But it seems Farooq knew it was a fake document and has treated the will as such ever since.
It would therefore surprise few that Farooq Abdullah sought votes this time round not in the name of his late father who still retains some respect and loyalty, his party or its autonomy agenda. Instead he invoked Dr. Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi. “Voting for NC is to strengthen the hands of Manmohan Singh and Sonia Ji” he declared at his election rallies.
At one level Farooq should be credited with a degree of honesty for having declared his intentions in advance unlike in 1996 when he got sixty seats and wept for India at the swearing in ceremony and sat in the lap of Sangh Parivar along with his son. But, on the other hand singing paeans for Manmohan Singh signifies the steepness of the fall from man tu shudam days.
A lesson for his competitors lest they should fall in the same trap of serving Delhi’s interest by exploiting Kashmir sentiment.
