The Hindu : Omar Abdullah draws large crowds

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 02, 2002

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Other States - Jammu & Kashmir

Omar Abdullah draws large crowds

By Shujaat Bukhari

SRINAGAR SEPT. 1. Though the National Conference president, Omar Abdullah, cannot hope to breeze through the polls and enter the Secretariat as the tenth Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, his entry into State politics has enthused the party cadre and the masses at large.

He has already registered himself as the star campaigner of the National Conference with his father and the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Farooq Abdullah, taking a back seat and paying much attention to his "unfinished agenda'' in the Chief Minister's Office.

In the past two weeks, Omar Abdullah drew large crowds particularly in the border area of Kashmir as also in some parts of Jammu. But his real test comes during the campaign in the Kashmiri-speaking hinterland, where he shall have to show that his Kashmiri is not bad.

When in 1998, he first joined politics by contesting the Lok Sabha elections from the Srinagar-Budgam constituency, among other promises was to work on learning the Kashmiri language. However, he is confident of not disappointing his voters. "I have improved a lot and will manage'' he says adding, "My interaction with the people is in Kashmiri only." He is now working hard on improving his party's image among the electorate exploiting what he says the "remarkable achievements of the NC Government in the last six years."

But at the same time he is not shying away from confessions that some of the NC Ministers and MLAs have not been up to the mark, without mentioning the large-scale complaints of corruption against some of them.

What is encouraging for the party is that this young president who wants to be the youngest Chief Minister of any Indian State is being heard with rapt attention.

"He may not be a match for his father but he certainly is emerging as a new hope for Kashmiris,'' says a senior leader. In his speeches, Mr. Abdullah tries to take the audience back to his stint as the Minister in the Union Government where he won accolades from none less than the Prime Minister. "We think he will be different from his father and may attend to people's problems, stop atrocities by security forces, and push Kashmir into an era of peace'' says Mohammad Ayub, a teacher, in Kupwara.

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