Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday said that he and his father, Dr Farooq Abdullah, refused to head the grand-alliance and become Chief Minister, and instead agreed to support the People's Democratic Party (PDP) from outside.
Omar said as the talks for an alliance begun between the PDP and National Conference (NC), his party made it clear from the day one that it wouldn’t be part of the government. “We told them categorically that the government is not our goal. At the beginning of talks, Farooq Sahab was asked to become Chief Minister but he refused. He even told them he was not interested to become Chief Minister. He also said he would see to it when the NC would be forming the government,” Omar said.
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“When I was asked to head the government, I also refused. I told them that the seat I have left in accordance with the verdict of people (in 2014), I won’t take it without the consent of the people,” Omar said.
He said when fresh elections would be held, if the verdict comes in favour of the NC , the party would decide about the chief ministership only at that time.
“We agreed for outside the support to the alliance. Our agenda was that the Article 35A should be defended in the Supreme Court and after defending it, the decision should be taken to dissolve the Assembly, so that new elections would be held in the State and new government be formed,” Omar said.
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The NC leader said his party was ready to provide outside support to the PDP. He said the PDP talked to the NC on Wednesday and sought the letter of support. “But I told them that we need to have a meeting of the core group. But in principle we (Congress and NC) had agreed to provide support to the PDP,” he said.
He said owing to the verbal support of both the parties, the PDP faxed a letter to stake claim to form the government to the Governor. However, he added sarcastically, that it was the first time in the history of democracy that a fax machine created hurdle in the democracy.
“What kind of fax machine is this that it doesn’t accept the letter of claim of government formation but accepts the letter of dissolution of the Assembly,” Omar said evoking laughter from the reporters present at the presser. The former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister said that it was a one-way fax machine and it should be investigated.
Omar also rejected the Governor’s argument that dissolution of Assembly was necessitated due to coming together of groups with different political ideologies and said, “this question should have been asked to the PDP and BJP in 2015.”
“When in 2015 two different political parties having different ideologies can come together and you have no problem with it but today you are saying that this can't happen," asked the former Chief Minister.
