When Chief Minister Omar Abdullah delivered his address during the prime minister Narendra Modi’s inauguration of Z-Morh tunnel on January 13, the contrast with the late chief minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed‘s speech during PM Modi’s visit in 2015 couldn’t have been starker. Mufti then sought an Indo-Pak dialogue and resurrection of Vajpayee-Musharraf peace process, and Omar sought restoration of statehood to the now union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Mufti’s tone was assertive and Omar’s conciliatory. But there’s hardly any scope for value judgement here. Between the context of the two speeches, their tone and tenor, there is a world of difference: Mufti was the chief minister of a constitutionally empowered state of Jammu and Kashmir including Ladakh and Omar that of a union territory where his elected government is subservient to Lieutenant Governor. And there’s little that he can do without the cooperation of the central government and the LG.

What’s more, the BJP is the largest opposition party in the Assembly with 29 seats. Backed by its government at the centre, the party will always be looking for an opening to form the government. Only thing that prevented the saffron party from forming the government in the union territory was that the voters in Kashmir largely rallied around the National Conference that got 42 seats. The NC-Congress-CPI(M) have 49 seats between them. And in the event of any unlikely defection in the NC in future, the BJP could very........

© Kashmir Observer