Srinagar, Jan. 11: Omar Abdullah today said political reasons were behind the controversy over Salman Rushdie’s possible visit, literally taking the clergy head-on as he trashed the opposition to the author’s scheduled participation in a Rajasthan literary meet later this month.
The comments triggered an instant backlash, with politicians and clerics in the Valley joining hands to slam the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister.
India-born Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses had prompted a fatwa from Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini, is to take part in a discussion at the Jaipur Literature Festival on January 21.
Omar today talked of more pressing concerns than Rushdie’s visit.
“I don’t think this is an issue that anybody should be concerned with. We are more concerned about day-to-day livelihood issues of Muslims of the country,” he told reporters in Jammu.