SRINAGAR: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday said that having an assembly in the Union Territory is a hybrid system and that the country should either have only states or only UTs. He also said that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is not organic but driven by fear.
In a programme, ‘Ummedu Ka Jammu Kashmir’ by ‘THE RED MIKE DIALOGUES With Omar Abdullah’, the Chief Minister, said that he wishes to have a J&K with peace and communal harmony.
About the statehood restoration with half powers, he said, “There is no model in India where you have a full state without all powers. So unless you are envisaging a situation where J&K would be treated uniquely, I don’t see how this will work. If you plan to treat J&K uniquely, then please explain what August 5, 2019, was about. If I am not mistaken, all of those were saying that J&K has been brought at par with the rest of the country.”
“The whole idea was that you can’t have two systems in one country. If it is one country with one system, then how can you now propose a new system just for J&K? You have to treat us at par.”
“If what is happening in J&K today is organic, then there’s nothing like it. If it is driven by fear, then you have a problem because you can only control a situation out of fear for a limited time. If it is organic, then it will remain forever. But I will hazard that the forces and the people you talk to in J&K, even they don’t believe it is organic. They wouldn’t have closed Jama Masjid for Mirwaiz to offer his father-in-law’s funeral prayers,” he said.
“Law and order doesn’t break out when normalcy is organic, but it happens when it is forced. It is not organic normalcy in J&K but forced, and this is because you are trying to run J&K through the second model you are proposing, where governance would not have a role in law and order and security. I will hazard that there are limitations to the second model that you are proposing because you will never be able to carry the population as partners for normalcy unless the elected government is part of the paradigm,” the Chief Minister said.
About his statement on the Article 370 judgment, he said that he has made it clear that the top court has already given the decision in favour of Article 370 in the past and now that the verdict has been given against it, there are expectations for a favourable decision again.
He added that the removal of Article 370 has not made any visible changes in Jammu and Kashmir, adding that the situation is not normal as militant incidents still occur.
He said he is not disagreeing with the statistics, as during his tenure, the trend of militancy-related incidents, recruitment, and other related matters had also declined. “The progress has not been made due to the removal of Article 370. It is because the Centre took measures that the J&K government would have never taken,” he said, adding, “The removal of Article 370 has had no impact on the improvement of security situations. That is because of the territory under President’s Rule and how you handled the security forces.”
“The officers I am working with have not been appointed by me. They will listen to those who have the right to remove or appoint them,” he said when asked whether the officers are listening to the elected government. “There should be either UTs or States only. If it is a UT, then there should be no assembly—don’t make a hybrid system,” he said.
He also said that he does not have a nature to make excuses; they (officers) are not doing and listening to us.
He also said that Amit Shah is the Union Home Minister, and meeting him was nothing unusual. “When I met Chidambaram and other HMs in the past, nobody talked about it. You cannot work without the support of the Centre.”
He also said that the Centre has not kept any way for confrontation; they are supporting the elected government in any way. They have promised the restoration of statehood, “but if they change their stance, then we will also change our approach.”
Regarding the INDIA bloc, he said, “We have been fighting against each other very much. The INDIA bloc should decide its role. If it is for the Lok Sabha polls only, then we should wind it up and form it again in the next parliamentary polls. But there is a need to fight joint assembly polls too. In J&K, we barely managed to save the alliance, and till the end, it was not showing any signs of going for the polls jointly. When we were discussing seat sharing with Congress, we were not ready to reduce our numbers as we were sure that we would manage to secure this number of seats.”
He also said that Congress has willingly decided to stay away from the cabinet, as JKPCC Chief had told him during the swearing-in ceremony that they will not be part of the government until statehood is restored. However, he said that space in the cabinet has been kept for them.
Asked whether the INDIA bloc is dead, he said, “No, we still have a sizable number in Parliament. Whether we can deliver or not is a different question, but this government depends on the alliance. Therefore, as long as the INDIA bloc can deliver, it is not dead.”
About statehood restoration, he said that he is not waiting for five years but expecting restoration this year. The discussion is ongoing, he said.
Omar also reacted to a query over the expectations of the people from his first budget, saying that from this budget, whatever they have promised, they will start delivering.
He also stated that security for Mirwaiz is again an indicator that things are not normal. “If you need to protect Mirwaiz with CRPF, then how can you claim normalcy? It means the threat to Mirwaiz has increased, not decreased. It means the ability of militants to strike has gone up, not down. The fact that the Mirwaiz had to be protected by the same commandos that protect national leaders like the Home Minister and Rahul Gandhi suggests that the security situation in J&K is far from normal. We didn’t give him CRPF during my rule; we protected him with the Police.”
He also said that J&K has the highest unemployment compared to other places. The Centre has failed to achieve its goal by abrogating Article 370, as despite untrue claims, there is no visible change after its removal on the ground. (KNO)
