Former constituents of the Peoples Alliance for the Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), the National Conference (NC) and the J&K Peoples Conference (JKPC) have engaged in a war of words ahead of the Lok Sabha election in the Kashmir valley.
JKPC chairman Sajad Lone, who is contesting the election from north Kashmir’s Baramulla constituency, on Saturday launched a scathing attack on National Conference vice-president and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.
“One of the most heavily guarded VIPs in India happens to be the ex-Chief Minister of J&K, Mr. Omar Abdullah. And Mr. Abdullah, feeling fully secure behind the impregnable security grid, has absolutely no qualms in scripting a discourse which has the greatest probability to end in violence and consume the lives of unguarded innocents,” Mr. Lone said.
His reaction comes in the wake of recent public speeches made by Mr. Abdullah in north and central Kashmir, where he made oblique references to the JKPC being “a crony of the BJP”.
Referring to Mr. Abdullah’s speeches, Mr. Lone accused him of uttering “daily vicious dose of allegations, linking people and parties to BJP”. “Labelling them as anti-Muslim. Mr. Abdullah is not a kid. He has been the Foreign Minister in a BJP government and also has been the Chief Minister of the State. He very well knows the violent outcome of vicious discourses,” Mr. Lone said.
Mr. Abdullah has been ticked off by leaders of the JKPC for raking up the past and accusing the former CM of “killing and maiming civilians” during street agitations in his tenure.
“The victor in the last three decades has been the ruling class. They ordered killings, ordered pellet guns to be fired, ordered arrests, ordered encounters, ordered PSAs, rigged elections, then arrested those whose elections were rigged and placed them under PSA and packed them off to far-off jails. Today, every village has a special graveyard and the victims of the victors rest there,” Mr. Lone further said.
The NC leaders also targeted Mr. Lone. “From 2016 to February 2018, when Sajad Lone was a Cabinet Minister in his BJP-led government, 1,150 people were detained under PSA [Public Safety Act]. As many as 55-60% of the detenu were in the age group of 15 to 28 years,” NC spokesperson Ifra Jan said.
Another senior NC leader Shafqat Watali said, in a post on X: “Those who misled our youth, armed them, instigated them to wage war against the nation, killed their political opponents, got our young killed, destroyed families, amassed wealth much beyond their source of income, are shamelessly trying to occupy the high moral ground and give sermons.”
Mr. Lone who quit the PAGD, a political conglomerate fighting for the position of pre-August 5, 2019 of Jammu and Kashmir, in 2021. Mr. Lone’s JKPC and Mr. Abdullah’s NC are emerging as the two main political rivals in Baramulla constituency.
