Friday 27 / December / 2024
Srinagar/Jammu: National Conference leader and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Sunday ruled out any tie up with Bharatiya Janata Party in government formation in Indian-administered-Kashmir even as his father Farooq Abdullah retracted from his statement on Saturday suggesting such a possibility.
Omar, the NC working President, said his party was not power hungry and would not make an ideological compromise.
"NC is not power hungry and is not interested in political power that comes through an ideological compromise. We shunned prospects of an alliance with the BJP a year ago and the reasons for having done that remain unchanged," Omar wrote on his official Facebook page.
Omar said the senior Abdullah was responding to a hypothetical question based on a hypothetical situation and he never said that the party would support the BJP.
He only said that if any such request or proposal is received from the BJP, it will be taken up by the party's working committee.
Farooq retracted from his Saturday's statement and called for dissolving the assembly and holding fresh elections, if the coalition partners Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) and BJP fail to form the government in Jammu and Kashmir.
"If they (PDP and BJP) cannot solve the problems of the people they must dissolve the assembly and hold new elections", Farooq told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.
Asked to comment on his statement in which he had said that his party's "doors were open" if BJP leadership approaches him to form the government in the state, he said that he had never said that his party was going with BJP.
"I had never said that we are going with BJP, it has to be made clear. I only said that PDP should form the government with the BJP as they have the mandate.I only said that our party can discuss on anything in our working committee," he said.
He said that his party has only 15 MLAs and with only 15 MLAs it cannot form the government."We cannot take a decision as we don't have the mandate we are only 14-15 people and 14-15 people cannot form the government.
"I am not the one to take the decision, it is the party high command to take the decision," he said and advised the coalition partners BJP and PDP to iron out their difference and form the government without any delay as the delay was not good for this border state.
Omar said PDP is an ally of BJP, and NC is not obliged to rescue either PDP or BJP from the ensuing stalemate in their standing political alliance.
It must also be remembered that the working committee of the party, in its recent meeting in Srinagar, had endorsed the decision taken by NC a year ago to stay away from BJP and "we expect no change in that decision", Omar said.
In the 87-member Assembly, BJP has 25 MLAs while its ally Peoples Conference headed by Sajad Gani Lone has two members.
The NC has 15 legislators. Any alliance between the BJP and the NC will still require at least support of two other independent MLAs to cross the 44-seat mark for forming the government.
Abdullah said PDP and BJP must sit down and solve the problems of the people.
"Delay is a bad thing, for this state, delay is a bad thing it is a border state (that is) going through a difficulty stage, they (PDP and BJP) have the mandate and they must sit down and solve the problems of the people that is why they were elected and if they cannot solve the problems of the people they must dissolve the assembly and hold new elections," he said The first signs of efforts to end the nine-day impasse on government formation in Jammu and Kashmir emerged after PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti called a meeting of her party's "extended core group" here on Sunday, expectedly to discuss the future course of action and ties with ally BJP.
