‘BJP’s push for independent allies won’t sway voters’

Ganderbal, Sep 04: National Conference (NC) Vice President and former chief minister Omar Abdullah Wednesday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was pushing independent candidates to form the government.

Talking to reporters after filing his nomination papers for the Ganderbal assembly seat, Abdullah said, “BJP is pushing independent candidates in a bid to form a government with them but voters will reject this strategy.”

He said that it was clear and that there were media reports as well that the BJP was trying to make as many independent candidates win from Kashmir as they could.

“They are doing this to form the government with the help of those independent candidates,” Abdullah said.

He said it remains to be seen what the agenda of those independent candidates was.

“Let their papers be accepted, then we will hear about their agenda, what they want to achieve for the people of J&K and what their plan is to stop the BJP,” Abdullah said.

He said that once the results are out, neither the BJP nor their conspiracies would succeed.

“The people will speak through their votes, and these attempts by the BJP will fail,” he said.

Abdullah said that after 2014, all development work in Ganderbal came to a halt, and this betrayal compelled him to re-enter the political arena.

“We are here today because the people of Ganderbal have been let down. All the work was stopped after 2014 and we are determined to restart it,” he said.

Abdullah said that had he contested the elections in 2014 on an NC ticket from Ganderbal, then Sheikh Ishfaq Jabbar, who was then with the NC, would have never won.

Hitting out at Jabbar, he said that Jabbar became the legislator from Ganderbal due to NC’s mandate.