Omar Abdullah Opens Up On Article 370 Abrogation , Role As A Politician, And Wants Follow-Up On Prime Minister’s Meeting

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Two years after the special status of Jammu And Kashmir was abrogated and he was detained for 234 days, NC vice- president and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has said that after initially being “deeply jaded” he had realised that as a politician he didn’t have the right to “mourn” for long and could not let down the people struggling for their basic constitutional rights.

On the eve of the second anniversary of the nullification of Article 370 of the Constitution, the former chief minister of the erstwhile state which has been bifurcated into Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, said that what had been done on August 5 had come as a shock to most people who were affected by the “sudden, unexpected and unconstitutional blow”.

Abdullah, who spent seven months in detention which was challenged in the Supreme Court, recalled, “I was a deeply jaded and disappointed individual. I found it difficult to motivate myself even to indulge in basic political activities possible in the prevailing situation. But as the saying goes ”if you want the rainbow, you have got to put up with rain”. So here I am doing the best I can for the people.”

He said the workers and leaders of the National Conference (NC) had made immense sacrifices for the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

“Hundreds of our workers and several of our leaders have fallen to the bullets of militants. I thought of all this when a certain light inside me was getting dimmer during my solitary confinement. I realised I could not just walk away,” he told PTI.

“The prime minister candidly spoke of reducing the “doori” (distance), both physical and mental, between Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir. We now await the start of the follow-up to that meeting,” he said.

“There is so much talk of development, development. We would welcome that if it really happened. The administration needs to go beyond inaugurating projects for which work had begun during the time of elected governments,” the NC leader said.