NC Working Committee chooses cooperation over confrontation with Centre

Srinagar, Nov 28: The two-day National Conference (NC) Working Committee meeting, chaired by NC President Farooq Abdullah, concluded here on Friday with the party leadership deciding that the NC should choose bridge-building with New Delhi over brinkmanship.

The meeting, which was also attended by the Chief Minister and NC Vice President Omar Abdullah, along with all Working Committee members and special invitees, decided to continue to deepen its ties with the Centre, ignoring confrontation narratives, a senior NC leader who attended the meeting said.

He quoted Chief Minister Omar Abdullah as saying that while NC would never make the mistake of allying with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) even if it will mean staying out of power for the next 20 years, the party and the government led by NC would not come in pressure with the narratives, mostly on social media, of indulging in confrontation with New Delhi.

“We will continue to have a strong working relationship with whichever government is in power at the Centre,” the senior NC leader quoted the CM as saying. “This was also the line toed by Sheikh (Muhammad Abdullah) Sahab.”

He said that speaking during the meeting, CM Omar also busted the myth of ‘Naya Kashmir’ floated by the BJP, saying that when NC drafted its manifesto for the 20204 Legislative Assembly elections, they had an impression that the financial position of J&K was such that a lot could be done for the people in terms of development and providing jobs.

“However, when we entered the civil secretariat, we found the treasury was running dry, and the promised investments were not coming through,” the senior NC leader quoted the CM as saying.

He said that after the legislators demanded an expansion of the cabinet stressing that it could help in delivering better results to ease the sufferings of the people, CM Omar said that the NC President and three-time chief minister Farooq Abdullah would review the performance of the legislators and within a month and a half the cabinet would be expanded and some new faces would also be inducted in the cabinet.

The senior NC leader said that the NC President would also revamp the organisational structure and announce three new Additional General Secretaries, while there is also a possibility of the party having a post of a Secretary General.

He said that CM Omar stressed the party to strengthen its social media presence for controlling the narrative and also to reinforce and revamp the Youth National Conference (YNC).

The senior NC leader quoted the CM as saying that YNC is the future of the party, and it was the right time to capitalise energies of the youth in making the party stronger.

“Two to three youth committees will also be constituted after Farooq Sahab reviews the performance of the YNC and state posts, including the YNC President will be announced,” he quoted CM Omar as saying.

Talking to Greater Kashmir, NC state spokesman Imran Nabi Dar said that during the meeting, it was decided that the party would continue to raise the issue of the return of special status as well as statehood to J&K at multiple forums, including the Parliament.

“It was decided that our Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members will continue to highlight these issues in the Parliament while at the same time the party would fight for the return of special status and statehood at other platforms too,” he said.

Imran said that due to the Centre’s failure to fulfill its promise of returning statehood to J&K, the NC-led J&K government was “hard pressed”.

“The Lieutenant Governor is creating hurdles in implementing even the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019. CM Omar Sahab was vociferous about it and stressed that, according to the act, the control of many departments and institutions like the Department of Art and Culture, Information Department, Islamic University of Science and Technology, Awantipora, Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University (BGBU), Rajouri, Power Development Department, and Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) should be with the elected government but the LG was not allowing it with officers from IAS cadre posted in departments where officers from the KAS cadre should be posted,” he said.

Imran said that during the meeting, NC legislators and senior leaders expressed disappointment that many vacancies in SKIMS were not getting filled.

“The NC leaders told the party high command that the LG is sitting over it and doing anything and stressed that other departments too were suffering similarly,” he said.

Imran said that about the state coffers being empty, CM Omar said that he had gone to meeting Union Minister of Finance, Nirmala Sitaraman and informed her that J&K was hard pressed and that some people were not even getting their pensions while the Centre’s “big talk” of investments coming following the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 was nothing but a “bundle of lies”.

He said that the CM accepted that it was difficult to manage the financial affairs of the state.

Imran said that CM Omar had said that NC would not go back on the promises it made and would continue to have a strong working relationship with the Centre and meet top leaders in New Delhi to ease the sufferings of the people of J&K.

He said that during that meeting, it was also stressed that the “dual governance” structure was creating hurdles in the better functioning of the government.

Imran said that the cabinet expansion was expected after around a-month-and-half.

He said that the NC President, Farooq Abdullah, had offered to work actively towards making the party strong at the grassroots level.

“Farooq Sahab stressed that he would be available for the party workers at all times. He also said that there will be changes in the organisation's set-up. There will be some additions. Some new faces will come forward,” Imran said.

About the debacle of the party in the recently held Budgam and Nagrota bypolls, he said that the leadership accepted that some things should have been done in different ways.

“The leadership said that multiple factors were responsible for this and stressed that there was a need for introspection. The leadership accepted that many areas were lacking that led to the defeat,” Imran said.

However, he said that the NC leadership stressed that the bypolls in Budgam had exposed elements who were indulging in a narrative against the NC.

“The leadership pointed out that people who don’t look one another in the eye, like Imran Raza Ansari and Hakeem Yaseen, supported the People’s Democratic Party in Budgam and got exposed,” Imran said.

Meanwhile, an NC spokesman in a statement issued here said during the Working Committee meeting, the party reaffirmed its commitment to special status and demanded immediate restoration of statehood to J&K.

He said that the meeting unanimously passed seven resolutions wherein the participants condemned the Delhi car blast and subsequent explosion at Nowgam Police Station in Srinagar and conveyed its condolences to the affected families.

The NC spokesman said that the Working Committee stated that the incident must be investigated at the highest level and responsibility fixed for any deviation from Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

He said that the Working Committee also expressed serious concern over the reports of harassment faced by students, traders, and residents of J&K in different parts of the country in the aftermath of recent events.