National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Tuesday said that his party has not relinquished its fight for the restoration of Article 370 that provided special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
Addressing party activists in Ganderbal, Omar said that there is a big difference between National Conference and other political parties.
“Other parties only want power, we also want power but we are not ready to sacrifice our principles for it and power is not our end goal,” he said.
“The rest have already given up on Article 370 and argue that Article 370 was gone. They say it’s enough to get statehood, we too want our statehood back but we haven’t relinquished our fight on Article 370,” he added.
“Party’s position on Article 370 remains unchanged and we will fight peacefully, democratically and legally. I will not give stones and guns to our youth, I won’t spoil the environment. we are committed to a peaceful struggle and we will continue to remain steadfast in our struggle,” he added.
Welcoming the announcement of the hearing date of Article 370 on July 11 by the Supreme Court, Omar said, “We are thankful to the Chief Justice of India. Hearings on petitions on Article 370 would start on July 11 and we hope that they would be expedited as soon as this case is addressed in the Supreme Court and a verdict will come out. It is better late than never. We have been eagerly waiting for this day.”
He said that if presented in the right way, our case is very strong. “In J&K priori the abrogation of Article 370, the then Governor first gave himself the powers of the Assembly and then assigned the powers of the Constituent Assembly to himself.”
“First he said that he was the representative of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and as the representative of those people who are not even alive today. All these things will be before the Supreme Court and we hope that we will get justice from there,” he said.
Taking a swipe at the opportunistic elements, Omar Abdullah said that those who have already allied with the BJP are the same people who say that the National Conference and the BJP will form the next government together.
“Why will we form a government together with the BJP? We are trying to form a government on our own. We are trying to explain to people that if you had not formed coalition governments in the past, we would not be in this situation today. We are telling the truth to the people that if the National Conference had not been weakened, these people (BJP) would never have been able to touch Article 370 and 35A.”
Omar said that in 1996, the way the National Conference got a two-thirds majority and prepared the draft of Autonomy and got it approved by the Assembly, from that day conspiracies were hatched and that the National Conference could never get a majority. August 5, 2019 was the result of that conspiracy.