The National Conference (NC) was trying to mislead Kashmiris by saying that it will restore Article 370 if it came to power. Besides, the NC had aligned with the BJP in the past and will join hands with it again if given the opportunity, Peoples Conference leader Sajjad Lone has said.
“If National Conference (NC) can bring Article 370 back, they should tell people how it can be returned back. The NC leaders should make people aware about its roadmap, but it is clear they can’t. When their three MPs could not stop its abrogation, how they claim it would be brought back now? This is all they speak lies to people,” Sajjad Lone, leader of the Peoples Conference (PC), said at Kupwara on April 15.
He said that the NC leaders cannot escape from their wrongdoings they had committed against people of J&K. As such, they should held accountable for their misdeeds and as such remain answerable before the public whom they wronged. Lone is a candidate from Baramullah Lok Sabha constituency held by Akbar Lone of the NC at present. However, this time, former chief minister Omar Abdullah is also a contestant from Baramullah.
Lamenting the state of affairs in the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu & Kashmir, Lone said today neither we have state, nor provisions that empowered us with special status. “Statehood is already taken away. Article 370 and 35(A) have been abrogated. The region has been without elections for the last five years. I had been a minister of the Sheep Husbandry Department only for a period of two and a half years. So those questioning me should hold the collar of those who governed J&K for the last 30 years. I’m not answerable, rather those who ruled J&K for decades should be made accountable for misdeeds they perpetrated in their times,” Lone said.
This dig was clearly aimed at the NC as three generations of Abdullahs have remained chief ministers of J&K at different times. It needs to be mentioned here that Sheikh Abdullah remained virtually unchallenged leader of J&K for a long time. After his death in September 1982, Dr Farooq Abdullah remained CM of J&K more than once. Omar is grandson of Sheikh, founder of the NC, who remained CM of J&K from January 2009 to late 2014.
Accusing the NC of adopting double standards, Lone said cryptically: “When it comes to Lok Sabha elections, it is do for us and die for others. We have been killed many times in the past and now it is the time for others.” He speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a party convocation in Kupwara, north Kashmir. In New Delhi, he was dubbed as Al-Barq (a militant group active in the 90’s), but within J&K he was labelled as a BJP proxy by the NC, Lone pointed out.
He said that parties like the NC were trying to befool ordinary people of Kashmir when they claimed that they will restore Article 370 if they came to power. Besides, the BJP was an ideological party with which the NC had aligned in the past and joining hands with it was no problem for the NC, Lone said. He said Abdullahs would gladly join hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi if only the PM gave them any attention.
Lone mocked Omar for behaving like a tourist in Kashmir and argued that a tourist does not have stakes in a place like a native has. It bears mention here that former CM Ghulam Nabi Azad had taken a jibe at Omar on Sunday saying he stayed at London with his maternal grandfather in summers. Since Omar scoots off to destinations abroad every now and then, he does not know what problems people of J&K faced, Azad had said.
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