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A visibly emotional Farooq Abdullah , addressing his party workers in Jammu for the first time in over a year said he won’t die until constitutional rights of the people of the erstwhile state are restored. The National Conference (NC) president and former Chief Minister also assailed the BJP for “misleading the country” and making “false promises” to the people of Jammu and Kashmir as well as those in Ladakh.
“I will not die until the rights of my people are given back…. I am here to do something for the people and the day I will finish my work, I will leave this world,” Abdullah told NC workers who packed the Sher-e-Kashmir Bhawan here ahead of a scheduled meeting of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) on Saturday. It was 84-year-old Abdullah’s first political meeting in Jammu since the abrogation of Article 370, which accorded Jammu and Kashmir special status, and bifurcation of the state into union territories in August last year.
Mainstream political parties in Jammu and Kashmir, including the NC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), formed the PAGD last month for the restoration of the special status of the erstwhile state as it existed before August 5 last year and also to initiate a dialogue between all stakeholders on the issue. Abdullah, accompanied by his son and former chief minister Omar Abdullah, arrived here this afternoon, their first visit to the region in over a year.
