Srinagar,
\nThousands of National Conference members converged at a stadium in Srinagar today to attend the party\u2019s first state-level convention in 15 years as its top leadership reinvented its anti-Delhi rhetoric.<\/p>\n
Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah, the two former Chief Ministers of the state and senior most leaders of the main opposition party, in their speeches lashed out at symbols of New Delhi: from Prime Ministers to the Army Chief to political parties.<\/p>\n
Addressing the Centre, Farooq said, \u201cYou snatched everything from us. You wonder why the people here don\u2019t raise your slogans. The people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh will not raise your slogans till you win their hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said this was possible only by restoring the state\u2019s autonomy, the bedrock of the party\u2019s politics.<\/p>\n
In opposition for three years now, the party seemed to have completed its transition to soft-separatism as Farooq dared Army Chief Bipin Rawat that continuing counter-insurgency operation \u201ccannot kill the sentiment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government thinks that they can suppress us by force. Don\u2019t scare us, we will not be scared. We will keep on resisting you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The National Conference, founded in 1938, has rooted its politics in anti-Delhi rhetoric every time it went out of power with its founding leader, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, leading a front for demand of plebiscite for two decades. The party leadership has craftily balanced the relationship with New Delhi and its politics in the region by making sudden policy turns.<\/p>\n
Its convention in Srinagar was one of biggest political gathering in the region since the last year\u2019s summer unrest which paralysed the support and crippled mobilisation of mainstream parties.<\/p>\n
The 80-year-old Farooq, whose re-election as the party\u2019s president was formally announced at the five-hour-long delegates\u2019 convention that was attended by nearly 20,000 members from across the state, made scathing anti-Delhi attacks.<\/p>\n
Farooq sternly distanced himself from power centres of past and present. He accused the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of attempting to dislodge his government in 1983, accused Jagmohan \u2014 the state\u2019s Governor in 1990 \u2014 of planning exodus of Kashmiri Hindus, lashed out at BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav and dared him to drive without bulletproof cavalcades.<\/p>\n
Farooq also targeted: the RSS, state\u2019s Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu, Congress, demonetisation, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and NIA raids against separatists.<\/p>\n
Farooq and Omar positioned the NC as a wall that shielded the state from the conspiracies \u2014 the word referred repeatedly in their lengthy speeches. \u201cWe have faced so many political conspiracies beginning from Gulmarg where Sheikh Abdullah was arrested by a police constable,\u201d Omar said in his speech, referring to his grandfather\u2019s arrest in 1953. Omar also blamed the state\u2019s ruling PDP-BJP alliance government for deteriorating situation in the state. \u201cThe situation is such that youth who joined the police now prefer to become militants,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said the people had waited for three years for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak favourably, which he finally did in August last year when he spoke of embracing the people of the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it seems his Cabinet members were not listening carefully to him. Not one Cabinet member has backed his statement,\u201d he said, adding that remarks coming from Union Cabinet members were confusing. \u201cYou keep comparing Jammu and Kashmir with Gujarat and Tamil Nadu and other states, but you should know that we have acceded and not merged. You cannot compare us with other states,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ex-CM throws away mic
\nWhen National Conference general secretary Ali Mohammad proposed re-election of Farooq Abdullah as the president of the party and it was backed by the two zonal presidents, Omar Abdullah was requested to make a formal announcement in this regard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Srinagar, Thousands of National Conference members converged at a stadium in Srinagar today to attend the party\u2019s first state-level convention in 15 years as its top leadership reinvented its anti-Delhi rhetoric. Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah, the two former Chief Ministers of the state and senior most leaders of the main opposition party, in their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8885,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8886,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8884\/revisions\/8886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}