National Conference meet deliberate on strategy for restoration of Article 370

Arun Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jammu, August 29

The National Conference in its all-important Political Affairs Committee meeting in Srinagar on Saturday, the first since August 5 last year, is seeking to devise a strategy to get the Article 370 restored to Jammu and Kashmir both as part of the party agenda and the Gupkar Declaration, the reiteration of which was made last weekend.

The meeting chaired by party president Farooq Abdullah is being attended by senior party colleagues, including Mohammad Shafi Uri, Abdul Rahim Rather and National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah — who is the second most powerful man in the party after Farooq Abdullah.

Sources said the National Conference was deliberating about its strategy that could synergise with other signatories of the Gupkar Declaration to carry forward the agenda till it is realised.

Article 370 and Article 35 A, that granted special status and exclusive rights of land and jobs to the permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir state, were revoked on August 5, 2019. The state of Jammu and Kashmir was also divided into two Union Territories.

The National Conference and five other parties have pledged to restore the status of Jammu and Kashmir. The other signatories to the joint statement reiterating this demand are the PDP, the Peoples Conference, the Congress, the Awami National Conference and the CPI-M.

Sources told The Tribune that the National Conference meeting was meant to justify the steps that it had taken and also why it waited till August 22 to make its stand clear, and what would be the strategy that would be peaceful but effective in securing the goal of real autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir beyond the symbolism.

Farooq’s party is deeply miffed by the taunts that the National Conference founder Sheikh Abdullah, too, had launched Plebiscite Front in the 1950s that ultimately ended with his signing off with the reduced autonomy and demotion of the title from Prime Minister to Chief Minister in 1975.

Sheikh later described that as “siyasi awaragardi” (time spent in political wilderness).

This has created not only a peculiar dilemma for the National Conference for it cannot shake off its Plebiscite Front tag that it voluntarily removed in 1975 after getting power but also has stripes of political trust deficit that the people were pointing time and again.

“The consciousness of this fact is making the National Conference attempt hardening of the stand to re-establish its pro-autonomy credentials,” a source said.