BJP hits back at Omar Abdullah, questions NC stand over autonomy

BJP on Saturday hit back at Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah over his comments on senior party leader LK Advani and asked why Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah remained silent over the issue of autonomy during his tenure at the helm. Omar while replying to Advani's blog had written on micro-blogging website Twitter that the senior BJP leader should devote some blog space to explain his silence over Article 370 between 1998 and 2004.

"It is Omar's turn to devote some Twitter space to explain Sheikh Abdullah's silence on autonomy between 1975 and 1983 when he was the Chief Minister of J~~amp;K with absolute majority and full Congress support in the State Legislative Assembly," BJP National Executive Member and state chief spokesperson, Jitendra Singh, said. Clarifying the stand adopted by the then NDA government over autonomy, Singh said, "The answer is very simple that Advani was a part of a multi-party coalition NDA government of which Omar Abdullah was also a part and the BJP did not have sufficient numbers to do anything about Article 370."

The BJP leader reiterated that his party has been consistent over the demand of abrogation of Article 370. "Abrogation of Article 370 is BJP's consistent stand unlike National Conference which rakes up autonomy only when out of power or when fearing loss of power," he said. On Omar's remark seeking to learn from Advani's wisdom about the constitutional mechanism to repeal Article 370, Singh said that there is already a constitutional mechanism in place in this regard.

"Omar will have to study the constitution of India to learn that there is already a constitutional mechanism in place which was formulated by the collective wisdom of the makers of constitution, none of whom belonged to BJP or Jan Sangh," he said. The national executive member maintained that autonomy has not done any good to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. "It has deprived the state of industrial investments, denied the youth of potential job opportunities, denied protection or reservation to certain sections of society and thus stood in the way of J~~amp;K becoming a beneficiary of India's rapid march towards global economic development," Singh said.