Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and National Conference candidate from the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat, Omar Abdullah, spoke to Sankarshan Thakur at his Srinagar home on where the aspirations of Kashmiris are located in these elections:
Q: There’s a buzz that the turnout in the Valley will be high. What do you think this election is about?
A: There is a sense of frustration and resentment at the way in which the people were completely excluded from such a huge decision about how they will be governed. If this is a democracy, where do we find our place in it? We were stripped of everything we had without our knowledge, leave alone our consent.
Q: But this is not an election for local power. Three people from the Valley, what are you going to be able to do in the Lok Sabha?
A: People here are realistic enough to know that. But they are also acutely aware of what one person can also achieve, and what the absence of that one person can do. We will speak, we will make ourselves heard. We may not be able to stop a juggernaut, but at least we can place on record how our people feel.
They want to send a message and we will carry that message to the Lok Sabha and the nation. Don’t forget, people also know that these elections will be followed by the one that really matters to them, the Assembly polls. So this is part of that preparatory process. That is also why political parties in Kashmir are far more engaged at the grassroots level than perhaps they would have been. The stakes are very high.
Q: Do you believe Assembly elections will happen?
A: Unless the Prime Minister and the home minister want to shoot their credibility far out of the water, elections will have to happen. Apart from what the Supreme Court has ordered, there are numerous commitments by the Prime Minister and home minister saying they will hold elections. Indications we are getting from Delhi are that come July, they will announce the poll date-sheet and finish the process by mid-September.
Q: Are you saying Narendra Modi is coming back?
A: I am merely talking at this stage on the assumption that he will. If he (Modi) is not coming back, elections are even more assured. A government without the BJP will definitely give us that, and we can start working, statehood being committed and a timeline being laid out even before the Assembly elections.
But then I don’t want to put the cart before the horse. But if we assume this government is coming back, both the Prime Minister and the home minister are not only committed to elections but also to statehood, and I will hold them to their word.
Q: What sort of state and government do you imagine? Do you think it will be anything above what the Delhi government is?
A: I am not sure there is any political party that will accept anything less than a full-fledged state with all powers, law and order included. The only compromise we might have to make is that we may not get the J&K bureaucracy and police cadre back. The cadre control in terms of transfers and postings will be with us. But all of this is in the realm of speculation at the moment.
Q: When you are out campaigning, what are you hearing most from the people?
A: A lot of it is about August 5 (2019) and the resultant worries about land and jobs and demography. When people go to government offices, they find people they can’t relate to, people who aren’t from here, don’t know Kashmir or Kashmiris or their issues. There’s a plethora of day-to-day issues — unemployment, public works, contracts, the really sorry state of electricity: bills are going up, supply is plummeting. They want these issues sorted and they need people they are familiar with to engage with and get this sorted out.
Q: Beyond Kashmir, what does this election mean to you?
A: Any election that risks returning someone for a third term, and that too someone who has made no secret of their divisive agenda, that is a fundamentally critical thing. The fact that voices from within the BJP have spoken about changing the Constitution, the out-and-out hatred for Muslims which is the cornerstone of their campaign.
There is something really wrong here. If after ten years in power, after 370 and Ram Mandir, you still have to go to Pakistan and Muslim bashing, what does it say of them? Given what they did in the second term, God only knows what they will do with sufficient numbers in the third.
Omar Abdullah on the lawns of his residence Sourced by The Telegraph
Q: But has INDIA lived up to the promise of a one-to-one fight it initially generated? And in J&K, has it not completely come apart?
A: The second question first. Mehbooba left, and as unfortunate as that is, we still have the Congress, the CPM and us fighting together.
Q: What went wrong with Mehbooba, has she been hard done by?
A: Honestly speaking, with the three Valley seats that we already held, the scope for seat-sharing was very limited. Seat-sharing is done on a formula. If you remember, when the district development council polls were held a couple of years ago, we, the National Conference, selfishly proposed that the 2019 parliamentary elections be the basis for seat sharing, but the PDP and others did not agree. Their logic was how can a parliamentary election be the basis for a local election, and we had to accept that.
By the same yardstick, the 2019 election should have been the basis for this one, and we had won all the Valley seats the last time. That said, I told the Congress while the negotiations were on that should the PDP fall in line with the current arrangement, we will be more than happy to keep the door open for the coming Assembly polls.
Q: So what’s to happen in the Assembly elections, are you and the PDP going to fight together?
A: I don’t know, let’s see what happens in the Parliament elections first.
Q: Let me ask this again: Is the Assembly door open or not? For Kashmir, that is the more important election.
A: It is. But let’s see….
Q: You wouldn’t completely shut it….
A: I don’t want to completely shut it, but let’s see how much bad blood remains after this election, we’ll have to see.
Q: What’s your word on Sajad Lone’s People’s Conference and the Apni Party of Altaf Bukhari?
A: It’s a very strange coming together. Clearly, their understanding is driven from Delhi. It is no secret that when Tarun Chugh (the BJP in-charge of J&K) comes, he goes to Altaf’s home, Sajad is summoned there, and they become friends. It’s all out in the open.
Q: They are the king’s party, you mean.
A: Clearly. You go to Altaf’s house and you see the levels of security, as if you are entering the PM’s residence or something. You just walked into my place, no frisking, no checking, you just walked in. That won’t happen at Altaf’s. But let me just add, it is one thing to announce an alliance, it is quite another to transfer votes.
Q: What message do you think the BJP has given by making huge claims about the outcomes of what they did in 2019 but deciding not even to contest the Valley seats?
A: They have absolutely blown their claims out of the water. For a party that claimed that what they did was hugely successful, even popular, this tells its own story. But I will say I am surprised by their decision not to contest south Kashmir, because everything was done to allow them an entry. Rajouri-Poonch was cut from Jammu and attached to Anantnag, Paharis were given reservations, and then they got cold feet.
Q: But as you said, it’s the Assembly that will be the real election, and looks like it will be a bloodbath.
A: (Laughs) Oh totally, totally, a take-no-prisoners affair.
Q: Are you looking forward to it?
A: Let’s recover from this one first.
Q: Would you be chief minister again?
A: I haven’t thought that far. First, give us back our state and then we shall talk. Under no circumstances am I going to demean myself by becoming chief minister of a Union Territory. I have been chief minister of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, I will not get into a position where even to move a chaprasi I have to send a file to the lieutenant governor, no chance.
Kashmir votes today, on May 20 and May 25