Farooq, Mehbooba slam BJP over Pakistan barb

Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti reacted sharply to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s accusations. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti on Friday (September 20, 2024) reacted sharply to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s accusations that the NC-Congress alliance was “implementing Pakistan’s agenda in Kashmir”.

“We never advocated Pakistan’s agenda in Kashmir. It’s them (the BJP) who run it and accuse us. Didn’t they (the BJP) release those who always parroted Pakistan in Kashmir and talked about referendums? Show me one who advocated the same and is in the NC,” Dr. Abdullah asked. 

The party’s vice-president Omar Abdullah questioned the remarks made by PM Modi at a rally in Jammu’s Katra on Thursday (September 19), where Mr. Modi said that “Pakistan was excited by the NC-Congress alliance, as it was implementing Pakistan’s agenda”.

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“If the NC was running Pakistan’s and militants’ agenda, then why were our 4,500 workers, including MLAs and MLCs, killed in attacks. The ground realities belie these claims,” Mr. Omar said. 

PDP president Ms. Mufti countered the narrative of the Prime Minister on regional parties and said “if the NC was implementing Pakistan’s agenda, J&K would not have been a part of India” in 1947. 

“The BJP should be thankful to Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah who chose India despite J&K being a Muslim-majority State. However, Mr. Abdullah’s later raised the bogey of plebiscite, which resulted in orphans and widows in Kashmir,” Ms. Mufti said.

The former Chief Minister said the BJP needs to be “grateful” to the NC. “When NC’s Omar Abdullah was in power with the BJP as foreign minister, he would roam around the world negating the Kashmir issue,” she said.

Ms. Mufti said her alliance with the BJP in 2014 was made on the conditions that there would be “no tampering with Article 370, cross-LoC roads will be opened and a dialogue with Pakistan and Hurriyat will be held”.

On Mr. Modi’s reference to Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s statement on J&K, Ms. Mufti said the BJP was raising the bogey of Pakistan to hide its failures. Reiterating her party’s stand on the Kashmir issue, Ms. Mufti said, “Kashmir will remain an issue till concertina wires are around. It needs a solution. Kashmir is an issue.”