Abdullah said the NC legislature party will meet to elect its leader, followed by an alliance meeting to decide on the coalition’s leader…reports Asian Lite News
National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said that he expects Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do the “honourable thing” by restoring the statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.
“A lot of things can be done as a Union Territory, clearly, some things can’t but we expect that J&K will not remain a UT forever. We expect the honourable PM will do the honourable thing and return statehood to JK at the earliest and then the rest of our manifesto will be implemented,” the NC vice president, who is tipped to be the next chief minister of J&K, said.
Abdullah, who led the NC-Congress alliance to a victory in the J&K assembly polls, hoped that the prime minister will fulfil his promise of restoring statehood to the people of the UT.
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“The prime minister and home minister are all honourable men. In their speeches and interventions in Parliament, through their Supreme Court representative, they promised restoration of statehood. So I believe it should happen at the earliest. And then, obviously, our priorities will go forward from there,” he added.
In response to a question, Abdullah said the J&K government cannot afford to have an antagonistic relationship with the Centre.
“Once the new government is in place, whoever the chief minister of J-K is, I would expect them to travel to Delhi to meet the PM, the home minister and other leaders to impress upon them that the mandate of the people of J-K was for restoration of statehood, was for development and peace and whoever the CM is, I hope they can establish a decent working relationship with the Government of Inda. There are far too many problems that J-K has, and it cannot afford an antagonistic relationship with the Central government. We will have to find a way of working together, and I hope that the Union government will respect the mandate of the people and will work together with the government of J-K to resolve the people’s problems,” he added.
Abdullah said the NC legislature party will meet to elect its leader, followed by an alliance meeting to decide on the coalition’s leader.
“At the moment, it is for the National Conference legislature party to sit and choose its leader; that has not yet been done. I think my colleagues deserve at least one day to celebrate their victories in their areas, so tomorrow we will do that,” he said.
In a day or two, the NC vice president said he expects party president Farooq Abdullah to call the legislature party meeting.
“The legislature party will elect its leader, then the alliance will elect the leader of the alliance, and then once the letters of support are available, we will stake our claim to form a government to the lieutenant governor. Beyond that, it is not for me to put priorities because none of that has been done yet,” he added.
Asked about the PDP extending support to the coalition government, Abdullah said it is for that party to decide.
“I cannot speak for the PDP. It is for the PDP to decide what to do. As far as I know, we currently have no communication channels with the PDP.
“In due course, let’s see what the PDP decides. I can understand the current circumstances and am probably looking more closely at what happened to their electoral prospects. So let the dust settle, and then we will see,” he said.
Regarding the NC’s performance in the polls, Abdullah said that while he expected to do well, he did not expect such a high number of seats.
“Speaking for myself, I did not expect these kinds of numbers. I did not expect the National Conference to come with these many seats. Last night, somebody messaged me asking how NC would do it.
“I said anything around 30 or above will be a good performance. I feel humbled by the faith people have reposed in me, but it is scary because we have to live up to this faith, which is our biggest responsibility now,” he said.
After the “We will be back” tweet after his party’s defeat in the 2014 assembly polls, Abdullah said he did not expect to wait ten years to be back.
“I did not expect to have to wait ten years. It has been a long wait, all those ten years, and since 2018, we have been without an elected government.
“So, more than being back, I am happy that democracy is back, that democratic rule is restored to Jammu and Kashmir. So yes, I would rephrase that tweet and say ‘democracy is back’,” he said.
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