National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said on Monday that he will not contest Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir as long as the reg...
National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said on Monday that he will not contest Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir as long as the region remains a Union Territory. “To this day, I fail to understand the need for this move [to make the state a Union Territory], except to punish and humiliate the people of the state,” Abdullah said in an article in The Indian Express.
The erstwhile state was split into the two Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, on August 5 last year, when the Centre abolished the special status of the region under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. Assembly elections, last held in the Union Territory in 2014, are due this year. The region has been under President’s Rule since December 2018.
“If the reason for carving out a separate Union Territory for Ladakh was the public demand among the Buddhist population of the area, then the demand for a separate state for the people of Jammu is a much older demand,” Abdullah said. He said that if the move was made on religious grounds, it ignored that the majority population of Kargil and Leh in Ladakh is Muslim.
Abdullah pointed out that after the reelection of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2019, there had been...
