SRINAGAR: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday reiterated that his government would not compromise on the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood, stressing that the fight would remain democratic and peaceful.
Addressing a gathering in Anantnag, Omar said he would never allow the Valley to slip back into violence. “I will fight democratically and peacefully for the restoration of statehood. But I will not allow Kashmir to once again plunge into fire. Families here have already suffered enough and I do not want to see that cycle of grief return,” he said.
The Chief Minister ruled out any political arrangement with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), even if it could hasten the restoration of statehood. “If inclusion of BJP in the government will help restore statehood, then take my resignation and make any other MLA the Chief Minister, but I will not compromise,” he said.
Omar recalled that after the last assembly elections, he too had the option of forming a government with the BJP. “Like Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Mehbooba Mufti did in 2015 and 2016, I could have chosen that path. Perhaps statehood would have come sooner, but I chose to keep the BJP away from power. We may have to wait longer, but I will never allow them to enter government through us,” he stated.
Responding to calls for protests, Omar referred to the recent violence in Ladakh. “In Ladakh, when people came out, firing started within an hour. Here in Kashmir, they will not even wait that long—bullets will rain within ten minutes. I do not want Kashmiri families to collapse under grief again. We will continue our fight, but democratically and peacefully,” he stressed.
He further said that Ladakh, which initially welcomed the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, has now admitted that it was constitutional protections that safeguarded their interests. “We had said it then, and we say it now, whatever happened on August 5, 2019, was wrong,” he remarked.
Reiterating his stance, Omar said the struggle was not against development or governance but for the identity of the people. “Statehood is our identity. We will not rest until it is restored and that too without surrendering our principles,” he said. (KNO)
