Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has come under fire from his rivals for heaping praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the inauguration of the strategic Sonamarg Tunnel in Kashmir.
The social media is abuzz with posts accusing Omar of changing his tone against Modi after the Assembly elections. However, there were also posts appreciating Omar’s non-confrontationist stance against Modi, which they said was in the interest of J&K.
Modi visited the valley on Monday to inaugurate the tunnel on the Srinagar-Leh highway. During his speech after the inaugural ceremony, Omar said that the recent Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir were notable for the absence of complaints about irregularities or misuse of power. He credited PM Modi, his colleagues, and the Election Commission of India for this.
Omar also praised Modi for implementing two of the three promises he made to the people of J&K during his Srinagar visit after winning the Lok Sabha polls for the third time. Omar urged the PM to fulfil the remaining promise of restoring J&K’s statehood.
Interestingly, Omar’s criticism for praising Modi has come from those political leaders who were earlier aligned with the BJP or were holding governmental positions in J&K with the support of the saffron party.
Mehbooba Mufti, whose PDP had formed a coalition government with the BJP in 2014, was critical of Omar praising Modi. She wrote on X; “Difference between a shortsighted politician & a true statesman. In 2003 then BJP PM Vajpayee during his visit to Srinagar showed great faith in Mufti sahab’s vision of peace with dignity even though PDP had a mere 16 MLAs. Today our CM despite 50 MLAs did everything to appease & normalise Delhi’s unilateral actions in August 2019 that cleaved & robbed J&K of its special status”.
PDP MLA Waheed Para said, “Omar Sahab used to criticise Prime Minister Modi, but everything has suddenly changed today… We were hopeful that Omar Sahab would talk about the abrogation of Article 370, but he did not. People are disappointed by this… Today, he talked about all those things that the BJP used to talk about. He did this just to impress the PM… Omar Sahab wants to promote the narrative of the BJP in Jammu Kashmir… He is playing the role the BJP wants him to play.”
Peoples Conference chief Sajad Lone, who was a minister in the PDP-BJP government, posted a previous clip of Omar on X and said, “This clip is a gift to all those who propagated his ‘All others are BJP’ discourse.”