Is Omar responsible for rumblings in PAGD?

Srinagar: Omar Abdullah is feeling the heat of trying to be the “mover and shaker of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) platform”, as its spokesman and Peoples Conference (PC) chief has quit the platform citing breach of trust and fielding of proxy candidates by the partners against each other in the recently held DDC elections.

The National Conference has come under a barrage of criticism as all the lists were being allegedly influenced by National Conference Vice President and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, resulting in a lot of heartburn in other parties and also creating rebellion among them.

Media reports have already suggested that Omar Abdullah recently has asked his father Farooq Abdullah to concentrate more on the party at the ground level and it was translated to reality as the NC a few days back came out with a statement that they will soon start a programme to galvanize its party cadre across Jammu and Kashmir. The rumblings within the PAGD started with the distribution of tickets among the different units of this amalgam when problems surfaced in PC, PDP and other groups as the NC started taking those seats also where these parties were having strongholds.

PDP president Mehbooba Mufti played down the problems created by Omar Abdullah’s alleged backroom pressures on his father to give tickets more to NC supporters even in the strongholds of PDP and PC. Sajad Gani Lone faced a lot of pressures during the distribution of tickets and all the insiders of PAGD attribute this problem to Omar Abdullah and his backroom interventions. “When Sajad Gani Lone felt that his party would split on the issue of proxy candidates, he decided to quit PAGD as there was no response from the senior leaders of the amalgam” one of his close associates told this newspaper.

Lone wrote a letter to PAGD president Farooq Abdullah and mentioned the reasons behind his decision to walk out from this recently formed coalition by many mainstream parties of Kashmir to fight for the restoration of Article 370.

“It is difficult for us to stay on and pretend as if nothing has happened. There has been a breach of trust between partners which we believe is beyond remedy,” Sajad Lone said in the letter released to the media too. Lone, knowing that the NC will try to show him in bad light, wrote in the letter that he is only walking out from PAGD and “not divorcing from alliance objectives”.

Sunday Guardian