Omar rules out alliance with BJP

Ehsan Fazili

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 22

On the eve of the counting of votes for the Assembly elections, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah ruled out the possibility of any alliance with the BJP even as he maintained that no party would be able to form the government on its own. He, however, said that the possible combinations would be seen only after the election results are out tomorrow.

“Anybody can make a tweet… do not read too much into it. My tweet on Vajpayee was made as I thought that there should be something on his birthday,” Omar said at a press conference here this evening. He said the tweet to honour the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee should not mean that the two parties, National Conference and BJP, were “going to hug” each other. The government at the Centre should consider honouring Vajpayee with Bharat Ratna, he added.

Omar, who completed his maiden and full term of six years as the J&K Chief Minister, said that during his election campaign he had not said that his party would form the government on its own. “No single party is going to form the government on its own… the NC will put up a credible show,” he said, adding that what combination is possible “will be seen tomorrow” after the results are out.

He said the BJP in the state would benefit from the “Modi factor” and get around 25 seats although it had been talking of Mission 44 plus and extended it to 52. “We feel the BJP won’t be able to open its account in the Valley,” Omar said.

On the six-year-long coalition with the Congress, Omar said there was no alternative and he had no regrets. “There is no question of regretting it… it was a relationship that emerged out of circumstances.”

He said that during his election campaign he was not critical of the Congress ministers and did not visit some of their constituencies. The Chief Minister, however, regretted that senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had run a “very bitter personal campaign against me and my family”.

Omar said he was looking forward to serving the people of the state in future as well and expressed his sense of “immense pride and satisfaction” at having served the people as Chief Minister for the last six years.

A lot of good work had been done, Omar said even as he added that he had some regrets. Enumerating the regrets, the Chief Minister said the killings in 2010, failure in getting the revocation of AFSPA from parts of the state and the lack of awareness among people to use various laws to fight corruption were only some of them.