Srinagar: Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah on Saturday alleged that the Union Territory administration is using police to force the winning candidates of Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) to join Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party.
“On one hand Prime Minister Narendra Modi and LG Manoj Sinha boasts on DDC polls and claim democracy has won, but on the other hand, democracy is being discredited,” Omar said while addressing a press conference at his residence in Srinagar.
He also played a call recording alleging how the husband of a woman candidate from Shopian who had won was allegedly forced to “make his wife join Apni Party in lieu of getting her brother in law released from detention.
“I don’t know the reasons on whose command this all is being done,” a visibly upset Omar said, adding, “Winning candidates of PAGD are being threatened, humiliated and coerced to join Apni Party, which is a B-team of BJP.”
He said that if BJP leaders including its spokesman are beating the drums that democracy has won in Jammu and Kashmir through DDC polls, why “same democracy is being discredited by the administration which is using police to force the winning candidates to switch sides to Apni Party.”
He said that perhaps this all is being done to change the verdict of DDC elections.
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“The process has been started from Shopian where NC’s former MLC Showkat Ganai and senior NC leader Shabir Ahmed Kullay have been kept under detention for no reason,” he said, alleging that “perhaps the price of setting these leaders free is to join the Apni Party.”
“This way democracy is being murdered in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said. “I wonder if Parliament has anti-defection law, and the Assembly too has it, why the same is not being implemented in Kashmir and those switching sides being disqualified.”
He said the verdict of DDC polls was loud and clear that people voted for PAGD and the message is “5 August 2019 decision wasn’t acceptable to majority of people of J&K. “ I don’t claim 100 percent people are with us but yes, majority have voted against the August 2019 decision,” he said.
