J&K Govt’s development narrative false: Omar Abdullah

Our Correspondent

Srinagar, February 24

Former CM Omar Abdullah today said the BJP and the J&K administration had been creating false development narratives. Even after five years of abrogating Article 370, the government has not been able to hold J&K elections, he said. “Shame on you (government) if you can’t hold elections five years after August 5, 2019,” Omar said in New Delhi. In a series of posts on X, the party, quoting Omar, stated, “No new infrastructure for winter sports in Gulmarg has been added after I left the office in 2014. Grossly unfair to suggest that we did nothing. If we are a democracy, right to choose rests with the people. And it is their choice whether they want to choose one family, two families or 10 families. I am not apologetic that I belong to a political family.”

Omar further stated that he was detained under the PSA for defeating Pakistan’s designs and for participating in elections. “This country was told that once Article 370 is gone, all problems such as terrorism, separatism and seeming lack of development will be gone. Five years into the abrogation, pocks of separatism continue. Every week there is a terror attack, especially in Poonch and Rajouri,” he mentioned.

Commenting on the rail development, he said the foundation stone of the new railway line was laid when Indira Gandhi was the PM. Questioning the tourism numbers of the government, Omar said that if the number of tourists had gone from 14 lakh to 1 crore 15 lakh, where had been the tourists sleeping? “In their cars? Under the flyover? In our period, we never counted pilgrims as tourists, whether those who would come to Amarnath or Katra. But this governments decided to count them as tourists. The actual number of tourists remains the exact same,” he claimed.

“Kashmiri Pandits didn’t leave because of Article 370. If that is the case they would have come back after the abrogation,” he added.

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