Khalid Jehangir tells Farooq to stop harping on autonomy

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today asked National Conference (NC) patron Farooq Abdullah to ‘stop harping about autonomy and acceptthat his party is fast turning irrelevant’.
In a statement issued here, BJP spokesman Khalid Jehangir said Farooq was raising the autonomy bogey to seek attention and remain in the news.
“It seems after losing power, the NC is making desperate attempts to hoodwink the people by selling old wine in a new bottle. The NC cannot befool people by raising hollow slogans as it knows well that it did nothing to restore J&K’s autonomy when it was in power,” Jehangir added.
Pointing out that the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led Central government had rejected the autonomy resolution in 2000 when Farooq was the Chief Minister, he said: “After the resolution was rejected, Farooq remained silent and stuck to his chair. Had he been sincere, he would have tendered his resignation then and there only.”
Referring to the recent statement in which Farooq appealed to the Kashmir-based legal fraternity to come forward and preserve the state’s special status, the BJP spokesman said: “Farooq should stop enacting dramas and see the writing on the wall. Kashmiris are fed up with the hollow slogans and mere rhetoric. People of Kashmir want to live with India. They are not interested in autonomy and azadi. Kashmiris want to live a prosperous life and flourish.”
Jehangir said the NC had faced a ‘humiliating defeat’ in the 2014 parliamentary and Assembly elections that had ‘frustrated its leaders and they are unable to digest that the NC is fast turning into history’.