A day after Chief Minister Omar Abdullah berated BJP legislators and accused them of trading their votes for their vested interests, the J&K unit of the BJP on Tuesday accused him of hurting the ‘Dogra’ pride with his irresponsible utterances and also threatened to drag him to the court of law.
With Assembly polls round the corner, the party workers and youth wing also launched a counter offensive on the streets of Jammu by organising several demonstrations where effigies of the Chief Minister were torched amid loud sloganeering.
leader of the BJP in the State Assembly Ashok Khajuria, against whom Omar had ‘indirectly’ leveled charges of seeking favours for his near and dear ones, addressed a Press conference at the party headquarters and threatened to drag Omar to court.
Khajuria claimed Omar will have to come clean on the allegations leveled against the party legislators. “Omar has claimed the BJP legislators demanded personal favours, now as head of the State Government he should bring the facts out in public domain. Omar should tell the people who actually sought favours from him and what action was taken by him,” he demanded.
He also defended role of other BJP legislators and claimed as public representatives it is their duty and responsibility to meet Chief Minister and others running the Government to ensure desired works are completed in time. We will continue to visit the high offices of the Government to highlight peoples grievances and seek their redressal, he added.
On the other hand, senior BJP leaders who participated in the protest demonstrations in Jammu said, Omar is doing all this in sheer frustration as he is facing eminent defeat in the Assembly polls. The BJP leaders claimed during the last five and half years Omar Abdullah only remained busy on Twitter, playing golf and enjoying helicopter rides. Now, when he has failed to come up to the expectations of the people, he is passing days in frustration and making baseless, indecent and unsocial comments and allegations against BJP and its MlAs.
The BJP leaders said that whatever Omar Abdullah said about Dogra pagri in a function at Jammu Club on Monday is disrespect and insult of the entire Dogra community. They said that no one has any right to comment or use insulting language against faith, ritual values and culture of any province or community and declared that the BJP will not tolerate it at any cost.
Meanwhile, one of the close aides of Omar Abdullah and provincial president of the National Conference Jammu region DS Rana at a separate Press conference clarified Chief Minister Omar Abdullah did not refer to the ‘Dogra’ pagdi at all in his entire speech at a function in Jammu club on Monday. "Omar Abdullah had only stated that by wearing a pagdi one cannot claim to be a leader of Jammu,” he added.