Omar Abdullah Criticises BJP and Election Commission for Stalling Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Elections

Fielding media questions after addressing a public rally in Rajouri’s Nowshera, Omar said that being on a sticky wicket, BJP doesn’t want to hold elections in the UT

National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah on Saturday blamed the Election Commission and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the delay in holding assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.

Fielding media questions after addressing a public rally in Rajouri’s Nowshera, Omar said that being on a sticky wicket, BJP doesn’t want to hold elections in the UT.

“Leave aside 50 plus seats, the BJP won’t even win ten seats if assembly elections are held today in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.

He added, “whenever situation deteriorated in Jammu and Kashmir in the past, we had leaders like HD Devegowda, IK Gujral, Manmohan Singh and AB Vajpayee, who tried to restore democracy but for the first time we have such a government at the Centre, which doesn’t want to hold elections here.”

Omar said that such a treatment to J&K also raised questions on the Election Commission, whose chief election commissioner, a few months ago, had talked about political vacuum in J&K and that it needed to be filled up.He slammed the EC for dragging its feet when it comes to assembly polls in the UT.

Policial leaders flay L-G for celebrating Nagaland’s statehood day

Political leaders on Saturday criticised lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha for celebrating the statehood day of Nagaland while ignoring the sentiments of people of J&K, who have been urging for restoration of statehood.

On August 5, J&K was bifurcated into two Union Territories after abrogation of Article 370 and 35-A.

“Irony comes to die in J&K. Here we celebrate Nagaland statehood day at Raj Bhawan, Jammu, while celebrating “Union Territory Day” when it comes to J&K. Talk about rubbing salt into the wounds of the people here,” Omar said in a post on “X”.

Peoples Democratic Party additional spokesperson Rafeeq Rather said that while J&K was being denied statehood, administrators here were celebrating statehood of other states. He termed it was unfortunate.

Former minister Basharat Bukhari said that celebrating statehood days of other state at a place which had been fragmented and reduced to UT was ironical.