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Centre has treated my father shabbily: Omar

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JUNE 21. The politically aggressive stance adopted recently by the National Conference towards the National Democratic Alliance Government at the Centre is seen by the BJP as nothing more and nothing less than signals that the NC is getting ready for the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir later this year.

Although the NC is a partner in the coalition at the Centre, it has not fought elections in the State in alliance with the BJP. The two parties fought against each other in the Assembly elections five years ago and in the 1998 and 1999 Lok Sabha elections.

However, though the BJP was not willing to admit it, the intensity of today's ``outburst'' by the Minister of State for External Affairs and NC president-designate, Omar Abdullah, suggesting that the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Farooq Abdullah, had been ``treated shabbily'' by the Centre, that Dr. Abdullah ``was not a grateful dog'' who would ``take any scrap that is offered to him from the table'' has taken the party by surprise. Worse, the Government will also have to deal with the fact that Omar Abdullah talked about the ``pathetic'' human rights record of the Centre in Kashmir and said that it was the NC, which had kept the Indian flag flying in the Valley. The remarks were made by him in an interview with a television news channel telecast today. But keeping a brave face, the BJP attributed the outburst to two factors. One, the impending Assembly elections, and two, that Dr. Abdullah is unhappy that now it would be difficult to accommodate him at the Centre as Vice-President.

The NC constituency and that of the BJP are entirely different. As a BJP leader stated: ``the NC cannot win a single seat in the Valley as a friend of the BJP''. The NC knows this. So does the BJP. The NC has, therefore, begun distancing itself from the BJP and the NDA.

As for the Vice-President's post for Dr. Abdullah, that possibility ended the day the NDA decided to adopt A.P.J. Abdul Kalam as its Presidential candidate — the President and the Vice-President cannot be both Muslims. That is how the political argument ran. But it is not being denied that Dr. Abdullah may have been promised nomination for the Vice-President's post, a promise the Centre now finds itself unable to keep.

The BJP does not see the outbursts as signalling the end of the cosy relationship between the NC and the BJP and the NC and the NDA — even on the Gujarat debate in the Lok Sabha the NC limited its protest to abstaining from casting its vote after enacting the drama of the ``offer of resignation'' by Omar Abdullah from the Council of Ministers. It sees this new tension in the relationship as a temporary phase which will last till the State elections are over and till a ``suitable slot'' is found for the senior Abdullah.

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