NC faced grenades and bullets but kept party flag high, it’s not easy to bury us: Omar
Srinagar: National Conference (NC) vice-president Omar Abdullah, on Wednesday, said that the District Development Council (DDC) poll verdict is loud and clear that the 5 August 2019 decision of the Centre about scrapping of Article 370 was not acceptable to people of J-K, and world community can’t be befooled anymore that people of J-K support Government of India’s (GoI) move of stripping the semi-autonomous status of erstwhile State.
Addressing workers at NC headquarters Nawa-e-Subh here, Omar said that there is no denying the fact that the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) has won the DDC elections with a huge majority. “The DDC poll verdict is loud and clear that 5 August 2019 decision of scrapping Article 370 was not acceptable to people of J-K,” Omar said.
The former J-K chief minister said that now that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is not able to digest the reality, its leaders are now saying that “democracy has won in J-K.”
“I want to ask when did we say that we don’t believe in democracy. We never said that,” Omar said. He said that BJP used its paid media to project that people are not with the National Conference any more as not even “dogs visit our offices.” “Last year, these days, I was in a guest house, my father was booked under PSA [Public Safety Act] while my other colleagues were in Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) hostel and under illegal house detention.”
“We can’t forget those days. BJP lost no opportunity to tell the world that NC didn’t exist anymore. But let me tell them that NC has faced every storm and fought against every conspiracy. We are a party that faced grenades and bullets but kept the party flag high,” Omar said.
About DDC, Omar said that NC leaders knew that their mission is strong and intentions clear and they were expecting help from Almighty and the same happened. “These elections are not the success of Dr. Farooq, Omar, Sagar, or any other NC leader, but it’s the victory of our ground level worker. This time, we didn’t publish posters and never went for campaigning. The only thing we did was that we told our local level leaders to tell workers that it was a fight to get back our lost identity,” Omar said.
He said that entering into an alliance wasn’t so easy. “In last Parliamentary polls, we were against each other everywhere. But for the larger interests of J-K and its people, we decided to leave aside our differences. Our leaders offered huge sacrifices by not contesting in the seats where they were strong as we left seats for alliance leaders,” the NC vice-president.
Taking a jibe at BJP, Omar said that NC is a cadre based party and has roots in Kargil, Leh, Jammu, and Kashmir including the hilly areas of two regions. “It’s not that easy to bury us,” he said. Omar said in the DDC battle, some old guards of NC switched to the other side and sold their conscience. “Till yesterday, they were on our side chanting Zindabad slogans,” he said.
Omar said the way BJP has tasted defeat in DDC polls, “I don’t think, GoI will announce Assembly elections early in J-K. He said NC leaders will work hard in the days ahead to strengthen the party wherever it is weak.” (KNO)
