Srinagar 31 oct: Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah stated that rather than having boycott the recently concluded Municipal polls in which the Valley had witnessed a low turnout, his party, National Conference (NC) We did not boycott the polls, we stayed away
In an interview with Delhi based Newspaper the Hindu, Omar said “we did not boycott the polls, we stayed away. There is a difference. The separatists stayed away and forced people to stay away. They used all sorts of methods to try and encourage people to stay away”.
“We took the view that we are choosing not to participate, but we were not stopping people from participating or stopping others from filing candidatures or threatening them,” he added.
“In the face of violence, you could have said people were afraid to come out to vote. Barring my two workers being killed in Srinagar, there was no stone pelting on polling day, no attempt to ransack polling booths, no concerted efforts to attack the candidates or the campaign process,” he said.
He pointed out that it was therefore, the people’s choice, which was being ignored by GoI and expressed shock over the fact that ruling party BJP won in ‘volatile Sopore’ where the Congress had no candidates.
He said that the BJP has done everything wrong that they could have and cited examples like the ongoing tense relationship with Pakistan, non-existence of internal political dialogue and a ‘poor’ interlocutor who had not been made aware to Omar of the nature of his work and goals.
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