M A I N   N E W S

It is celebration time
Humra Quraishi

IT is 3 p.m. And by now the message is clear: Farooq Abdullah’s NC has fared badly. The biggest jolt is Omar Abdullah’s defeat. And as one moves around Srinagar faces of the Kashmiris are alight with smiles — right from auto-drivers to PCO-operators to the pedestrian, who is walking about with added enthusiasm and in a mood to celebrate.

While coming back after interviewing Saifuddin Soz I couldn’t find enough change but the auto-man waved his hands about: “Today its even okay if you hadn’t even these 10 rupees. At least those robbers have been defeated... You know where will Omar Abdullah run to, to London city where his father and J&K Bank Chairman Yusuf Khan have already opened a hotel. No, they will not be able to stay here. But they have already done all their bandobast...”

At the PCO booth jokes are being cracked and two Sikhs from Tral are exchanging notes with the locals; “Though we didn’t vote but what we wanted has been achieved; All we wanted is that NC should be out. You know how they went terrorising people with their Special Task Force which Farooq Abdullah used as his special ‘fauj’.

No, nothing seems to deter them from talking about the ills of the previous government. “Any politician will be better than Farooq Abdullah. He had begun killing us. Imagine killing his own people, setting one set against another while he himself moved about in imported cars or flew all round the world. Even at this crucial phase he was visiting his Jew son-in-law in South Africa”. And you can judge the mood from the fact that colleagues coming back from the counting centres said the minute Omar Abdullah realised that he was loosing he beat a hasty retreat and seeing him moving away made many embrace each other. Even cops gave each other subtle smiles.

And today, at this junction, if you ask the average person whom would he like to see on the Chief Minister’s seat he says for him it is enough that the Abdullah dynasty/rule has come to end. In fact the level of this hatred can be judged from the fact that Sheikh Abdullah’s grave at Hazratbal area is guarded by cops round the clock for the locals had given the call that they would pull out his remains.

There speculation is that PDP’s Mehbooba or Congress’s Azad would head the new combination. No, they chant that they would have no problem seeing a woman Chief Minister. In fact she is said to be the only candidate who had the guts to go from house to house while campaigning was in full swing.