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Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah has dismissed ex-RAW chief A S Dulat’s claims that he had “privately backed” the Article 370 abrogation as a “cheap stunt” to boost the sales of the top spy’s forthcoming memoir.
He suggested that Dulat’s motive behind penning the book — ‘The Chief Minister and the Spy’, slated for release on April 18 — could be an attempt to reach the power corridors or earn a lot of money. “It is possible that he wants to make a new relationship,” Abdullah told PTI.
Reacting angrily to Dulat’s assertion that the National Conference (NC) would have “helped” pass the proposal to abrogate the special status of the erstwhile state had it been taken into confidence, the 87-year-old president of the party said this was a “figment of imagination” of the author.
Abdullah pointed out that both he and his son Omar Abdullah had been put under arrest for several months at the time of the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019. “We were detained because our stand against the abrogation of special status was well-known,” he told PTI.
The NC chief said he had taken the initiative of bringing together all major political forces in Jammu and Kashmir and formed the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), a coalition of political parties to defend the special status of the state.
Abdullah ridiculed Dulat’s claim that the NC would have got a resolution passed in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly for the abrogation of Article 370.
“The claim in the book that the National Conference was planning to pass a resolution on the abrogation of the special status is merely a figment of the imagination of the author who claims to be my friend,” Abdullah said.
Highlighting gaps in Dulat’s reasoning, he said, “A benchmark of common sense should have been adopted by the author while penning the so-called memoir. He should have remembered that there was no assembly in 2018 as it had been dissolved.”
Abdullah insisted that even if the assembly had been in session, he would have never considered passing such a resolution.
“I was the one who had a two-third majority in the 1996 election. I passed a resolution in the assembly seeking greater autonomy. Dulat’s claims in the book are contradictory to my actions which have always been for strengthening the people of Jammu and Kashmir,” the former chief minister said.
