KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
National Conference Saturday said the party didn’t need any lectures from those who lack the objectivity and honesty to call a spade a spade and those who have demonstrated brazen “hypocrisy” in giving the PDP-BJP Alliance its tacit support, often by its conspicuous silence. Responding to a statement attributed to an anonymous Hurriyat (g) Spokesperson, National Conference Spokesperson Junaid Mattu said, “Geelani Sahab should introspect and put his house in order as his close aides were in close contact with PDP-BJP coalition leaders and were issuing partisan statements in lieu of political and financial favors.”
He said, “The irony is that when the people of Kashmir are united in their overwhelming opposition to the unholy PDP-BJP Alliance, Geelani Sahab seems to have taken upon himself the mantle of diverting attention and public wrath from PDP’s previous sellout and its next imminent sellout by issuing prejudiced and factually incorrect statements against National Conference. If Geelani Sahab wants to take part in mainstream politics, he should contest elections and return to the Legislative Assembly – where he has incidentally spent a considerable amount of time, a fact he would want to wish away from the books of history”, the NC Spokesperson said in a statement issued here.
He said the party was glad that Geelani was expressing such keen interest in NC’s political struggle for the restoration of internal “Autonomy” and said he was more than welcome to be a part of this struggle. “Geelani Sahab’s Spokesman, in his copy-paste statement apparently received from Fairview, has clearly and conveniently skipped the fact that National Conference passed a resolution in the Legislative Assembly in 2000 seeking the restoration of Internal Autonomy with two-thirds majority. That the Central Government didn’t honour this resolution is not an indictment of the Legislative Assembly of J&K nor of Jammu and Kashmir National Conference. By those standards of high, self-righteous morality, no individual owes more answers to the people of Jammu and Kashmir in terms of deliverance on rhetoric, rather lack thereof than Geelani Sahab himself. When it comes to his own politics, he claims his intentions are more than enough but when it comes to the political struggles of others – it’s purely and solely about delivery of a final resolution. Nothing could be more hypocritical and ironic”, the NC Spokesperson added.
He said that Geelani shouldn’t need to be reminded that he was a part and parcel of the political mainstream in the State even during those years when National Conference leadership chose prison cells over sellouts. Sheikh Abdullah was in prison for a collective period of 22 years. Ironically, when Geelani Sahab is put under house arrest for 22 days, there is elaborate rhetoric about sacrifices and suppression of dissent.
“Had Geelani Sahab and his contemporaries stood by the honour and dignity of J&K during their years in the political mainstream, the constitutional erosions made in the State’s special status at the behest of New Delhi could have been prevented”, the NC Spokesperson further said.
The National Conference Spokesperson said Geelani should ask his aides and anonymous spokespersons how they have managed to land certain political favours from mainstream politicians and tell the public if these statements were a quid-pro-quo arrangement for those favours. “Facilitated encroachments, indirect tenders and allocation of lucrative contracts to the kith and kin of these aides and spokesmen by certain mainstream politicians cannot be ignored. If Geelani Sahab cannot summon the objectivity and honesty to call a spade a spade for his personal compulsions, he should realize his words are neither Godly nor sacred”, the statement added.
“National Conference has strived to safeguard the political interests of J&K and its people and we will continue to do so in the future. We don’t need Geelani Sahab’s lectures. Our honest suggestion to him is that he should introspect and submit himself to some scrutiny and accountability – what has he delivered in return for the sacrifices that he has asked the common-man to make? Nobody is a holy cow here and no sermons will be tolerated without these lies being rebutted”, the NC Spokesperson added.
