The news is Omar Abdullah is returning as Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir . He staked claim to form the government late last evening before Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha .These are challenging times for the incoming chief minister is an understatement. Omar has to live up to expectations of the people who voted for his party -National Conference and its ally is given . The whole nation and several sections of the international community, particularly in the west and Islamic world also are waiting and watching how will he play his cards at a time uncertainties are more certain than the uncertainties.
Omar has some wonderful qualities which many in politics lack . He speaks his mind without mincing words.. Many believe that he should not be doing so , but then he is a different person whose interest and investment in politics is owing to his family and also because of the compulsions of times . He had entered into politics in early 1998 with a clean slate , he had no baggage . His entry into Lok Sabha was given as there was virtually no opponent against him , and National Conference was ruling the state with a huge majority . But nevertheless it was a test . Soon after the elections were over , his father Farooq Abdullah who was chief minister that time as also NC president announced his party’s support to NDA government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee , leaving many in surprise . Farooq, however, explained that Jammu and Kashmir cannot survive without Centre’s support.
Today that issue is more relevant than at that time . The Central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi scrapped Article 370 which was a sort of article of faith for National Conference in more than one ways. The state was also divided into two union territories, Ladakh became a separate entity and UT. J&K also found its status demoted to UT, something that many in this Himalayan territory had neither anticipated or imagined ever .
Omar was the first to declare after he came out of the detention in March 2020 – he was detained on the night of August 5, 2019 , hours after the Article 370 and Article 35 A were snapped and declared dead and buried forever. In an interview with Indian Express he had declared that he would never contest elections as long as J&K is UT, that meant he would not contest the Assembly polls. After he suffered defeat in Lok Sabha 2024 polls from Baramulla seat in north Kashmir, he looked at the things pragmatically , though many ascribe his decision to his political U-turn. Now when he has won from two seats of Ganderbal and Budgam which he contested , the whole question of U-turn should end here. In politics , one never calls it a day.
Coming to brass-tacks , Omar has been tasked to live up to expectations of the people in the Valley who voted for him – there were promises of passing a resolution in the Assembly to reiterate the stand for the reversal of abrogation of Article 370 , full throttle campaign for the restoration of the statehood to the UT of J&K, release oof prisoners , jobs and job opportunities for the unemployed youth. These are potentially risky ventures . Though there can be no quarrel over employing the jobless youth, but all other issues are dotted with signs of confrontation with the Centre.
While it is understandable that the Centre of the day will not take anything on the restoration of Article 370 and 35A as it believes that all this talk is against the idea of national unity and integrity , on the issue of restoration of statehood which the Centre had promised time and again , it is in a wit and watch mode . The genesis of the dismantling of the statehood lie in the fact that the BJP government did not trust the state government for maintaining peace that it has brought about in Kashmir. The notion of peace is there, but it is yet to be accomplished in soul and spirit . That is the argument based on the presumption that security forces need to eliminate residual militancy and also because Pakistan has not retreated from export of cross-border terrorism in J&K .
Internally , however , there are voices that will not agree with the would-be-CM that it is a long haul and it is foolishness to expect that the same very government that snatched the Article 370 will restore it . They want a sustained campaign on it . The moderate group of Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has already reminded the new government that the unanimous verdict of the voters is for the “reversal of all what happened on August 5, 2019,” and then there are many others who would keep him nagging on this issue. He would have to maintain his political credibility with his voters as also find a way to take J&K forward .
In the given situation , Omar and his allies will have to devise a new roadmap which is convincing and pragmatic in which Centre , its representative LG and the elected government can work together on the same page . Is it possible – it is an open-ended question .
Binoo Joshi is editor JK News Today, former BBC and IANS correspondent and political strategist
