BJP’s Mission 44 plus has rattled Omar Abdullah
Omar Abdullah had never expected that the NC would lose all three
Kashmir Lok Sabha seats with huge margins.
Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister and working president of the
pro-autonomy and fundamentally sectarian National Conference Omar Abdullah, is,
it appears, a disillusioned and broken-hearted politician. He is nervous and
desperate, but nothing is moving in the direction he wants so that he might
restore the lost political space to other political parties. Actually, it has
been happening since September 2002, when his father and the then J&K Chief
Minister, Farooq Abdullah, who was also the party president, virtually abdicated
everything in favour of Omar Abdullah. It happened just on the eve of the
Assembly election in J&K and the unpopular Government of Farooq Abdullah
was under severe attack.
Farooq Abdullah had perhaps thought that time was opportune for Omar
Abdullah’s succession. He was not content with just that. He also chose not to
contest the Assembly election himself, left the state for South Africa during
the highly crucial fourth phase of the election and remained inactive during
the entire election campaign for all practical purposes. He was so proud of his
son.
There was however, another opinion: That Omar Abdullah brought off a
coup against his father and captured the party.
Young and foreign-educated but essentially reactionary and
backward-looking Omar Abdullah led the party’s campaign from the front, but
with no result. On the contrary, the NC’s tally in the Assembly under his
leadership was drastically reduced from 57 (two-thirds majority in the
87-Member House) in 1996, to 28 in 2002 (less than 33 per cent of the total
strength of the House). He himself lost the election to a candidate fielded by
the newly-founded People’s Democratic Party (PDP). The PDP, which contested the
Assembly election for the first time in 2002, won 18 seats. The defeat of Omar
Abdullah and the NC, Kashmir’s premier political party with a communal agenda,
was all the more humiliating because he lost election in the Ganderbal Assembly
constituency that had remained a pocket borough of the well-entrenched Abdullah
family for many decades.
In the 2008 Assembly election, Omar Abdullah’s leadership again failed
to click, despite the fact that the NC remained in Opposition for six long
years and the PDP-Congress Government (November 2002-November 2005) and
Congress-PDP coalition Government (November 2005 and July 7, 2008) had become
thoroughly unpopular owing to their acts of omissions and commissions and
anti-people and anti-democratic policies. Again, the NC won 28 seats. It’s a
different matter that UPA chairperson and AICC president Sonia Gandhi parted
company with the PDP to please her son Rahul Gandhi, who wanted his
‘friend’ Omar Abdullah to lead the sensitive J&K State. Sonia Gandhi
declared that she sacrificed her party’s interest in J&K in the larger
‘national interest’. Earlier, in 2002 as well, she had described her decision
to hand over power to the PDP as a decision taken in national interest. Reports
had, in 2008, also suggested that Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah had moved
heaven and earth to cultivate and befriend the Congress high command to fulfil
their lust for power and pelf.
As said, things have not been moving in the direction Omar Abdullah
wants. He had never expected that the NC would lose all three Kashmir Lok Sabha seats with a huge margin,
but much to his chagrin, it happened. His own father and party patriarch Farooq
Abdullah lost the election by a huge margin of over 60,000 votes to the PDP
candidate. It was this ignominious defeat in the just-held Lok Sabha election
that has rattled him to the extent that he has practically lost his way. He is
not finding words to meet and rebut the arguments being advanced by his
political arch rivals and suggest that the NC is just down and not completely
out. He has been becoming a laughing stock ever since May 16, when the election
results were announced and the BJP and its NDA allies came out with flying
colours winning 282 and 54 seats, respectively, in the 543-Member House. The
BJP-led NDA created history with the people’s unstinted support.
It would be neither desirable nor possible to catalogue here all the
statements that Omar Abdullah made after May 16 in response to searching media
queries. A reference to what he said on July 1 at Kashtigarh area of Doda
district in Jammu province would be enough to make the point that he has lost
his way. On that day, he followed in the footsteps of former Prime Minister and
Janata Dal (Secular) supremo HD Deve Gowda and declared that he would quit
politics if the BJP won 44 seats independently in the coming Assembly
elections. “The day BJP gets majority in J&K Assembly elections, I will
take retirement from active politics and go into hibernation. I do not want to
see that day nor will that day come in the future,” the frustrated, jealous and
rabidly anti-BJP Omar Abdullah said.
It is obvious that Omar Abdullah completely overlooked the ground
realities for which HD Deve Gowda had to eat humble pie as well. It was a good
gesture that he, like Omar Abdullah, participated in the oath-taking ceremony
of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 26. This should be the approach. It
bears recalling that it was on April 12, 2014 that 81-year-old Deve Gowda
declared at a news conference in Shimoga (Karnataka) that he would leave
Karnataka state if BJP candidate Narendra Modi became Prime Minister. “He shall
retire from politics if BJP won 272 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. BJP will
not get majority. Narendra Modi is dreaming of becoming Prime Minister. If this
happens, I shall leave Karnataka and settle somewhere else,” he swore.
Sophisticated and experienced politicians avoid making loud assertions
on things over which they have no control. It is always risky to bet on
something that is not in one’s hand. But Omar Abdullah, like Deve Gowda, or for
that matter all fake secular leaders including Rahul Gandhi, Digvijay Singh,
Beni Prasad Varma, Mani Shankar Aiyer, Arvind Kejriwal and so on, is made of
different stuff. He is a politician only in name. Clearly, he is blissfully
ignorant about the political realities in J&K like Deve Gowda and others of
his ilk were ignorant about the stark realities in the country, including the
mood of nation. In politics, anything can happen and the outcome of the 2014
general election is a classic example in this regard. It is not the parties but
the electorate that matters.
What are the ground realities in J&K? Can the BJP achieve its
Mission 44+ and form a Government on its own? The BJP, which created history by
winning three Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Ladakh, has its support base in at
least 36 Assembly constituencies and its leadership simply has to work hard and
with single-minded devotion to convert its support-base into votes and seats. A
little more effort could also help the BJP spring surprises in the Kashmir
Valley, which houses a highly diverse population.
Three factors can ensure the BJP’s victory. One, the NC, which secured
only about 9 per cent of the total popular votes polled in the Lok Sabha
election, does not have a single leader who can inspire confidence in the
demoralised NC cadres or galvanise the party. It has no organisational
machinery. In fact, the NC is nothing but a bunch of opportunists, self-seekers
and rabble-rousers who stand thoroughly exposed.
Two, the Congress, which secured less than 20 per cent of the total
votes polled, has no credible leader. The people of Jammu and Ladakh are
vehemently opposed to the Congress and its leadership. The general view in the
State is that it is the Congress, more than the NC, that has been responsible
for most of the ills facing the State.
The third, very important factor is the formation of a strong, stable
and credible Government at the Centre. People of the State, barring the likes
of Omar Abdullah, would want a Government that would have cordial relations
with New Delhi because they know that J&K cannot survive even for a moment
if the Union Government stops funding it. Remember, the State exchequer in
J&K is empty and the State Government depends wholly and solely on the
Union Government even for paying monthly salaries to its 4.5 lakh employees
(estimated).
All in all, it can be said that the BJP’s electoral chances in J&K
are quite bright. It has committed leadership, organisation, inclusive
ideology, positive agenda, strategy, and above all the courage of conviction
and confidence that is needed to meet political challenges.
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