KL Report
SRINAGAR
PDP leader MP Tariq Hameed Karra today said Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s admission that the BJP legislators bargained and voted for his National Conference (NC) candidates in 2011 polls for six Legislative Council seats has only brought out the fact that how NC is having a simultaneous alliance with Congress and BJP. He said the revelation points to the disturbing fact that how political corruption is being promoted by this government at the highest levels.
“PDP has right from the beginning maintained that while NC is having an overt coalition with the Congress in the state, it is enjoying a covert alliance with BJP simultaneously,” Karra said while addressing a series of public meetings in Chrar-e-Sharief assembly segment.
Chief Minister had recently said in Jammu that BJP legislators after “bargaining” with the government voted for NC-Congress coalition candidates during the 2011 polls for six LC seats. NC-Congress alliance had won five out of the six seats with the help of BJP. Omar had also said that BJP legislators had earlier also voted for Dr Farooq Abdullah during the latter’s election for Rajya Sabha.
“Doesn’t Omar’s admission of purchasing BJP votes make it a fit case of corruption against not only those who got the money, but also those who paid it for buying votes,” Karra said. It has been NC’s trait, right from the beginning, to misuse the state and its official organs for power, he added.
Karra said if such a thing would have happened in any other state, the culprits, howsoever powerful, would have been since behind the bars, “but unfortunately the rule of law could never cross the Lakhanpur Toll Post to make the individuals and institutions accountable in J&K.”
“This is one of the primary reasons why people in J&K have least faith in the institutions of governance and the democratic system,” Karra said and added that it is now very clear that what could have led to the mysterious death of NC activist Haji Yousuf at the Chief Minister’s official residence in intriguing circumstances as it also revolved around political corruption.
Reiterating his demand for a thorough probe into the allegations of favoritism and nepotism in the recruitments in J&K Bank, Karra said the revelations by senior NC’s Dr Mehboob Beigh that hundreds of backdoor appointments were made in the Bank on the behest of the Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather can’t be brushed under the carpet.
“Unemployment being the major concern of every stakeholder in the state, nobody can be allowed to play with the future of educated unemployed youth by resorting to nepotism in recruitments and these need to be probed so that people know what’s going on in this premiere financial institution,” he said.
