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Coalition politics has hit J&K hard, should end: Omar
Arun Joshi

When the Centre and the states like UP, Maharashtra, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are having one-party rule, Jammu and Kashmir also urgently needs one-party rule. The coalitions have inflicted damage on the state. Omar Abdullah, j-k chief minister

Jammu, November 3
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has said that the “coalition era should come to an end in J&K as the coalitions have damaged the state.”

He said the time had come when the elections should “throw single-party rule. The coalitions have been quite damaging for Jammu and Kashmir”.

Omar will complete his six-year term in January next. He headed the coalition government of his party National Conference and the Congress. This was his first experience of leading the coalition government.

“Now when the Centre, states like UP, Maharashtra, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are having one-party rule, Jammu and Kashmir also urgently needs one-party rule. The coalitions have inflicted damage on the state,” he told The Tribune in an exclusive interview on Monday as the state is bracing for one of the toughest elections in its political history.

About the much talked about negotiations that are supposedly going on between the BJP and the National Conference for some kind of understanding before and after the polls, Omar avoided giving a direct answer.

“This all depends on what next Assembly looks like. Right now there is nothing to talk about. We don’t know the shape of things to come,” he said. “The alliances are not on our mind,” he said.

Asked if the BJP was “untouchable”, Omar, who was a minister in the Vajpayee government from 1999 to 2002, answered, “I am not going to get into it.”

The Chief Minister is still emotionally overwhelmed by the devastating natural disaster that hit the state. He said he was not interested in holding on to power and would have “stepped down and recommended Governor’s rule if the elections would have been delayed to allow the relief and rehabilitation work to go on for the flood-affected people.

“We were not interested in holding on to power. I would have stepped down if the elections would have been delayed with the promise that the relief and rehabilitation work not be hampered. I would have recommended Governor’s rule. But no one listened to us,” he regretted.

Touching upon some of the urgent issues and the circumstances in which the elections were being held, a tinge of rushing emotions in his voice with a perfect balance of hard political realities, Omar is feeling the need of his father Farooq Abdullah being around. Farooq is unwell and is in London.

Omar is going to the elections entirely on his own and is “quite confident but not

over-confident of coming back to power on his own. We don’t want to sound arrogant,” he observed.

“What has saddening him is that the “devastating floods (September 2014) have cast a dark shadow over the polls.

“The elections were announced when the people were struggling to rebuild their lives, rebuild their homes and restore their livelihood. Now the Model Code of Conduct has become a hurdle. The Supreme Court has noticed that. That’s precisely what we were also saying. There were no written instructions from the Election Commission,” he observed and said that “It was too late to plead with the EC. Now it is a matter between the Supreme Court and Election Commission”.

“And, worst of all the package (of Rs 44,000 crore) that we had submitted will not come until the new government is in place. The BJP government at the Centre cannot announce package for Jammu and Kashmir in elections. It would be seen as a political move by the BJP,” he said.

Reflecting on the situation, he said, “The MCC and the election duties will take the field staff - deputy commissioners, superintendents of police, tehsildars and others from the relief work. By the time the elections are over, we would be in the thick of winter and many months would have been lost.

“We were expecting hotels and houseboats to be back in shape before March when the tourist season starts. There is doubt about it now”. “It will be done, but the government would have no role in it. The people would do it themselves.” But all this will “impact the enthusiasm of the voters that was there prior to the floods,” he said.