‘Imagine If I Had Fielded Terror Accused’: Tweet That Ended Mehbooba and Omar’s Twitter Truce

The cordial relations maintained by rivals Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, both former chief ministers of J&K, came to a rude halt on Thursday as a war of words raged between the two on Twitter.

It all started with Mufti’s reaction to the BJP fielding Sadhvi Pragya, a key accused in the Malegaon blast case, from Bhopal against senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh.

“Imagine the anger if I’d field a terror accused. Channels would’ve gone berserk by now trending a mehboobaterrorist hashtag!” she said in a tweet.

“According to these guys terror has no religion when it comes to saffron fanatics but otherwise all Muslims are terrorists,” she added.

But Mehbooba’s outrage did not go well with Omar and he reminded her that till last year, she was the Chief Minister of the state with the support of the same BJP she was now railing against.

“‘These guys’ were your allies until they unceremoniously unseated you. ‘These guys’ have been this way before they came to power in 2014 but you only noticed their sins after June 2018.The desire to remain in power blinded you to their crimes until ‘these guys’ forced you to see!,” Omar responded to Mehbooba’s tweet on Thursday morning.

The NC leader’s reaction came as a bit of a surprise as he and Mufti have maintained niceties in their Twitter exchanges in the past, backed each other up against trolls and even cracked jokes together in the last few months despite being poll rivals.

Just a couple of days ago, Omar had condemned the attack on Mufti’s convoy and she did the same when a leader of his party was targeted with a grenade a day later.

But with Omar’s response to Mufti’s tweet, it was clear that civility had had its day. Mehbooba reminded him that if she had formed a coalition government with the BJP, he too, had served as a minister under the NDA government when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister.

“Oddly enough Ram Vilas Paswan resigned post Gujarat carnage on moral grounds but you chose not to,” she said, adding the jibe, “Consume almonds Omar. Improves memory.”

After Omar responded with a willingness to debate his three years with the NDA to her four years with the BJP, she again replied, "Did I hit a raw nerve? Deflecting it with juveline comebacks wont help Omar. If I were you Id pop an antacid for the stomach burn."