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On eve of EC meet, Omar Abdullah backs polls

Praveen Swami

National Conference chief says little will be achieved by deferring polls

NEW DELHI: On the eve of a critical meeting of Election Commissioners to decide on the timing of Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir, National Conference chief Omar Abdullah has warned that little will be achieved by deferring the process until next spring.

“If I could categorically tell the Election Commission that the turnout would be higher as a result of waiting,” Mr. Abdullah said in an exclusive interview to The Hindu, “I would be demanding that elections be deferred. But the truth is that things could just as well get worse.”

When the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners had visited Jammu and Kashmir, he said, the NC expressed concerns about the turnout, pointing to the communal polarisation in Jammu and the alienation of people in Kashmir. “We outlined the steps we would have liked the government of India to have taken to address these issues in a timely fashion.”

“But,” Mr. Abdullah said, “little had been done to improve the situation. I wish I could say the steps needed to defuse alienation will be taken over the next few months,” he pointed out, “but a government made up of a group of retired bureaucrats is hardly likely to be able to reach out to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. As things stand, there is a disconnect between the government and the people. Let us not forget that the majority community in Jammu and Kashmir, the Kashmiri Muslims, are not even represented among the Governors advisers.”

Dialogue with secessionists unlikely

Nor, Mr. Abdullah pointed out, did it appear probable that a major political initiative to lock secessionists’ groups in a dialogue with New Delhi would come about soon.

Over the next few months, he pointed out, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is going to be occupied with the Assembly elections in five States, and then in preparations for the Lok Sabha elections. “We’ve seen what happens when government takes the eye off the ball in Jammu and Kashmir. Witness the crisis this summer snowballed because everyone in New Delhi was focussed on the India-United States of America nuclear deal negotiations.”

“In my opinion,” Mr. Abdullah continued, “no substantive political dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir is very likely to happen until the Lok Sabha election is out of the way. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has, of course, shown the ability to pull things out of his hat against the odds, as the nuclear deal shows. However, I do not think he has the political capital right now to engage in a sustainable process.”

Mr. Abdullah instead suggested that some groundwork could be done to help a future political initiative. “It isn’t enough for the Prime Minister to say that he’s willing to talk to anyone who is willing to talk to him,” the National Conference president argued. “I mean, this isn’t like sorting out a municipal problem. It can’t be done in a couple of months.”

Mehbooba’s claims strange

Mr. Abdullah also lashed out at PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti for her recent claims that Governor N.N. Vohra was biased against her party.

Governor S.K. Sinha, he said, was appointed after consultations with the then Chief Minister, who was Mufti Mohammad Saeed. “When things went bad, they said he was communal, and absolved themselves of all responsibility. They were again consulted before Mr. N.N. Vohra was made Governor. Since things haven’t gone their way, they are now saying he is communal. If they think the Governor is so awful, why do they not leave the United Progressive Alliance? It is strange that on the one hand you say that Mr. Vohra is communal, biased, whatever, but on the other you do not want to hold an election and put a popular government in place,” Mr. Abdullah said.

“We are not hungry for power. If the elections are not held now, it is fine with us. We will focus on ground-level political work. But the PDP is petrified of elections, whether they are held now or later. Their entire leadership, in particular Mehbooba Mufti, stands utterly discredited. They have responded by trying to discredit the democratic process itself,” he concluded.

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