‘Want to light a fire here?’: Omar attacks Centre on delay in restoring Jammu and Kashmir statehood

REiterating the exact for statehood to be restored to Jammu and cashmere — non including the UT of Ladakh — Chief government minister Omar Abdullah on sabbatum asked the Centre not to treat his patience as a weakness. He demanded a clear timeline.He further said the central government should ask itself why, after being in power for over one-and-a-half years, J&K's ruling party National Conference was mulling a protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.At a party convention at the mausoleum of his grandparents in Hazratbal to mark the 26th death anniversary of his grandmother Akbar Jehan, Omar Abdullah asked that if the Centre was ready to talk to the people of Ladakh on issues that include a demand for statehood, “why not the people of Jammu and Kashmir?”Jammu and Kashmir, then including the region that's now the UT of Ladakh, was stripped of its statehood as part of the Centre's August 2019 decision to revoke its special status under Article 370. While Parliament approved the state's reorganisation in August 2019, the change took legal effect on October, when the erstwhile state was bifurcated into the union territories of J&K and Ladakh.Omar Abdullah accused the BJP-led central government of controlling governance of Jammu and Kashmir through the lieutenant governor (LG), and said, “If you had to harass people through the Raj Bhavan, dismiss employees and run bulldozers, then why did you bring us forward?”The chief minister said his party's success in assembly elections for the UT has become a “punishment” for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. “Why did you (let us) form the government if you will not allow it to function? What is the benefit? Then you should not have conducted the elections,” he said. Referencing his late grandmother, Abdullah said, “We have to keep patience, as was shown by her. But patience is not the path of weakness."He also spoke of how he had chosen to push for dialogue. “I kept my political future and reputation at stake and told the Centre that we want to secure our rights through dialogue and not violence, knowing that this decision can be very risky for me politically,” he said."You have made a joke of our patience, decency and silence. Do you want to light a fire here?" Abdullah asked.“They should have told us at that time that you come forward, but we will tie your hands behind your back. That we will give you those officers who will not implement (your) decisions. It is our patience that we are still working like donkeys to achieve something for the people of Jammu and Kashmir,” he added.Abdullah also asked the Centre to define the implication of “appropriate time”.‘… when BJP coming to power?’“I ask them, for God's sake, how will we know that the appropriate time has come? What do I and my colleagues have to do to reach that appropriate time?” he said.He further asked if the appropriate time implies BJP coming to power in the erstwhile state. “Have the courage to say it publicly,” he added.Pointing to electors' participation in the parliamentary and assembly, polls, the chief minister asked how many more elections will have to be fought on the hope that statehood would be eventually restored.“Now, you say you want to conduct local bodies and panchayat polls; we also want that,” he said, but added that the Jammu and Kashmir government will decide what the appropriate time for conducting the local bodies polls would be.(with PTI inputs)