Offensive utterances of National Conference additional general secretary Mustafa Kamal against PCC chief Saif-ud-Din Soz and the Congress party in general on Saturday spoiled the Iftar party of Omar Abdullah here in Jammu.
Speaking to a local news agency in Srinagar, two days ahead of the Iftar, Kamal had stated that JKPCC president Saif-ud-Din Soz was a “political turncoat who from time to time had stabbed the National Conference in its back.”
“Our heart is never with the Congress, which is not a political party but a department in J&K run and maintained by New Delhi,” Kamal had stated during the same interaction.
Taking serious note of the choice of words and the aggressive posturing by the senior National Conference leader belonging to the Abdullah family, senior State Congress leaders sent feelers to the National Conference leadership that they would skip the Iftar to be hosted by the Chief Minister if Mustafa Kamal failed to tender an apology.
“This is too much, we cannot tolerate such indecent use of words and hate campaign against the Congress party and its senior leaders,” a senior Congress leader told The Pioneer.
A Congress leader said, “To save himself the embarrassment of hosting an Iftar in the absence of alliance partners, the Chief Minister decided to land in New Delhi and directed the organisers of the Iftar to inform the invitees about the postponement in advance.”
Before the rumour-mongering started over the actual reason behind the postponement of the Iftar, the invitees were hurriedly informed via local media and a Press statement was issued by the official spokesman of the State Government claiming, “Due to inclement weather and forecast of a bad weather tomorrow the Iftar party to be hosted by the Chief Minister on Saturday August 3, 2013 at Jammu has been postponed.”
Interestingly, as weather smiled and skies remained clear and blue the State Government’s justification behind postponing the Iftar was also exposed and created a piquant situation for the organisers of the event.
Meanwhile, Congress spokesman in the State MlC Ravinder Sharma told The Pioneer, “this is a serious issue for the State Congress leaders from top to bottom. Kamal has been repeatedly making irresponsible statements without facing any reprimand from the top brass of the party.”
He added, “We cannot afford to sit back and listen to his abusive utterances from the sidelines.”
In the last two days, the State Congress leaders belonging to Soz and Ghulam Nabi Azad camp attended a series of meetings and also reviewed latest political developments. In a joint statement, the PCC leaders claimed, “Kamal should know that they are in power because of the Congress support. The present coalition has not been imposed by the Congress party and for the NC it has not been a compulsion to be in the Government.”
The Congress leaders in their statement demanded “the National Conference should immediately expel Mustafa Kamal from the party and offer an apology to the Congress leadership and its cadre, failing which the Congress workers will approach the party High Command to review its relationship with the National Conference. The Congress workers also request its Ministers in the coalition to stay away from the Cabinet meetings until apology is offered,” the statement said.
The Congressmen believe that “Kamal has been rehabilitated and rewarded as general secretary of the party, for hurling choicest abuses upon the Congress party and its leaders by distorting facts to mislead the people, who, however, fully understand the vested interest behind this,” they added.
Imam ;-igIJ$thers were present. Several of the UP ministers were also present on the occasion.