Omar reminds Mehbooba of KVIB inquiry, attacks PDP

MIR FARHAT

SRINAGAR : As the dust of controversy over appointment of PDP vice president Sartaj Madni's son in KVIB is yet to settle, Opposition National Conference today asked why the order of inquiry has not been issued three weeks after the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had ordered it.

"Three weeks ago, chief minister had ordered inquiry into the backdoor appointments in Khadi and Village Board, yet the inquiry order has not been issued," former Chief Minister and NC president Omar Abdullah told reporters in Damhal Hanjipora in Kulgam today.

"Are CM's order not being implemented? Or she deceived the youth by ordering an inquiry," Omar asked taking a dig at Mehbooba.

Omar was referring to the appointment of Madni's son Syed Aroot as Executive Officer in KVIB which created public uproar in the state and Mehbooba Mufti ordered probe by Chief Secretary B B Vyas into the appointment.

However, the probe order was not officially issued indicating the inquiry did not take off.

The former chief minister said the chief minister stood relegated by her allies as erstwhile exclusive jurisdictions of the chief minister and the state government had been effectively shifted to the central government and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs .

Mehbooba Mufti has summarily surrendered her power to take decisions and has precious little to offer to the people beyond photo-ops and press statements, he alleged.

Just yesterday Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh exposed the duplicity and disingenuous modus operandi of the chief minister and her party when he revealed that the idea to offer amnesty to stone-pelters came from the Central Government and not the state government, he said.

This initiative till now was marketed by the PDP as Mehboobas initiative but it turns out she had nothing to do with the decision. Similarly, recently the chief minister tried to tell us how magnanimous and reconciliatory she was in seeking relief for a detained photojournalist who had been arrested by the NIA.

The NIA came out at rubbished all such claims and said they would continue to oppose bail to the individual and had received no such instructions from the government or the Union Home Minister.

Fortunately for the family of the young photojournalist, the honourable courts granted him bail despite opposition from the prosecution, he said.

He claimed the PDPs faustian bargain with the BJP was not an electoral compulsion as the chief minister would like us to believe today .

It was a pre-determined, pre-planned tactical and strategic coming together of the PDP and the BJP to reap dividends of a simultaneously divisive, insular and deceitful politics in both regions of the state, he alleged.

Omar said his party, after the election results of 2014, offered unconditional support to the PDP to form the Government with an intention to keep BJP at bay as their divisive campaign rhetoric and inherent politics of polarization did not auger well for the state's stability and welfare .

He claimed that J&K had been pushed into the throes of renewed militancy, turmoil and division. While the situation in Kashmir is volatile and unstable, Jammu is on the brink due to BJPs politics of polarization, he alleged.

The situation was especially volatile in south Kashmir where the youth stand alienated and disenchanted because of PDP's complete u-turn after 2014. In 2014 mainstream activities in Shopian, Pulwama, Kulgam and Anantnag could be conducted freely without any apprehensions. Today, the situation is such that the very idea of the mainstream stands questioned because of PDPs deceitful preference to power over ideology," he alleged.


The same young men who were exploited by the PDP in 2014 through its stentorian rhetoric are now being pushed towards militancy as all promises stand broken, he said continuing his attack.

Abdullah said parents in south Kashmir were weary about the future of their young children as the law and order situation deteriorates further in the complete absence of constructive, reconciliatory and sincere politics.