Batting for early announcement of Assembly elections in Jammu & Kashmir former Chief Minister and working president of the National Conference Omar Abdullah on Sunday mocked the alliance partners BJP and PDP to clarify if their alliance was still intact why they were shying away from forming Government in the State.
Speaking to reporters after inaugurating local cricket tournament in Jammu, Omar said for how long the people of the State would have to wait to see a popular Government in place.
Taking a dig at PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, Omar said she cannot take people of the State for a ride by shying away from taking responsibility especially when numbers were on her side.
On the occasion Omar also sent out clear signals to the BJP leadership announcing doors of his party were already shut for them long ago.
“At present we are not keen on forging any alliance with the BJP in the State”. He said we already knew if BJP came to power in the State the situation would worsen. This is what happened in the last 10 months. The situation deteriorated in both Jammu and Srinagar, Omar said elaborating the State cannot be benefited if NC too formed an alliance with the BJP.
Meanwhile, questioning the muted silence of the PDP chief over the all important question of forming the Government in alliance with the BJP Omar posed few direct questions to her during the brief media interaction.
“Mehbooba Mufti has been quiet for long and she can no longer remain silent and keep people guessing. He dared Mehbooba to take a bold step and clear the air. Omar asked we would like to know what are those CBMs and how long she will wait for those Confidence Building Measures and why did the need of CBMs suddenly arise after the demise of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed”.
Sharing his own assessment of the current political situation in the State Omar said, “as far as our knowledge is concerned, the alliance (between BJP and PDP) still exists. We haven’t heard either from BJP or PDP that alliance has been broken, so the alliance exists and if the alliance exists, then why there is no Government in place.
Omar said last year both the parties came together after “Agenda of the alliance was formed and Mufti sahab was made the Chief Minister. Now we want to know What has changed in the past ten months that today even though they have numbers in the Assembly they are not ready to form the GovernmentIJ”
Omar said that National Conference has been telling them time and again that if they are not ready to form the Government, they should be bold enough to break the alliance and go to the masses for fresh mandate.
“We will go back to the people, but I am unable to understand the way of their leadership. They ask for Confidence Building Measures, but I am not sure that within the party people know or not, but outside nobody knows what they have asked for,” he said.
He said that even BJP was not aware of what PDP was asking for. “Even BJP has said that please clearly tell us what you are asking for, so we too would want to know what are the CBMs which Mehbooba Mufti is asking for, and did they keep a time frame, a deadline,” Omar said.