Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who has been making constant noises over the issue of States’ ‘conditional’ accession to India, on Monday attempted to do some course correction, by claiming that Jammu & Kashmir is an integral part of India.
Omar’s regular flip-flop over the sensitive issue had earlier landed him in trouble on several occasions besides triggering a debate much to the chagrin of alliance partners in the State.
Setting the record straight on the occasion of reopening of Durbar Move Officers here in Jammu, Omar, suffering from severe symptoms of bad cold said, “J&K acceded to India. J&K is a part of India. There are no two ways about that. Now, there may be differences in the way J&K acceded to India, as opposed to other States, but that does not call in to question our accession”.
On being repeatedly asked by media persons to answer a straight question, “whether J&K is an integral part of India” Omar responded that, “If you acceded to India, are you not an integral part of India. Of course, you are”.When media persons further tried to pose another supplementary Omar refused to respond and moved on to take another question.
Before making this sharp statement Omar had virtually snubbed media persons by saying “Please do not put your words in my mouthIJ I never used the word ‘conditional’ nor the word ‘incomplete’. I have not used such words. You pull out the Assembly record and see what I had said,” Omar said, replying to a question about his comments over accession of the State to India.The media persons,never referred to his statement made on the floor of the House but tried to clarify certain points in the wake of his recent remarks.
Recently on September 25, 2013 when a delegation of European ambassadors had called on Omar Abdullah in Srinagar he had reportedly told them that while other states had merged with Union of India after accession, Jammu and Kashmir had only acceded to the federation on four matters of currency, communication, foreign affairs and defence.
PCC Chief Prof Saif Ud Din Soz had also made a public statement over the views expressed by the State Chief Minister during his meeting with the Europeam delegation. “I have never accepted his (Omar’s) theory that we have not merged. We are an integral part of India.We have acceded finally and irrevocably” Soz had clarified.
Replying to another question about his suggestion that Irish model could help resolve Kashmir issue, Omar said, “Anyone’s solution cannot be implemented here suddenly. But we can learn from these processes, whether it is Israel-Palestine process or Ireland process or Scotland process or China model...I said this for the reason that we want that instead of violence the solution should be found out through talks or dialogue.”
In a statement to a london-based newspaper, the Chief Minister had said that a peace accord on the lines of Irish and Scotland model could be thought for Kashmir.
“For the solution of J&K problem, separate model and proposals have been given out by several organisations, these proposal have come from Congress, BJP, NC, PDP and Bilal lone’s PC and others.
“I can be wrong as CM to say that only one proposal should be implemented. Although my party has a stand on it. I repeatedly requested the Centre that the proposals should be analysed and which it feels is right should be implemented,” he said.
Responding to a question about his “failure” to motivate the Centre to hold talks with separatists, Omar said, “I had been successful in motivating the Centre rather than separatists. If Separatists’ intention are true then they should be ready to talk to the Centre. But unfortunately Separatists have been taking one step forward and two steps backward.”
“It is easy to motivate the Centre, but it is difficult to motivate separatists. We cannot forcefully drag them to dialogue table, we can forcefully bat for it,” he said.