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| Fearing another defeat, Farooq decides not to contest election | | | Rustam
JAMMU, July 22: NC working president and J&K CM Omar Abdullah on Sunday again declared that his father and party president Farooq Abdullah will not contest the upcoming Assembly election. He said the party has decided not to field him because he is not keeping good health. The declaration of Omar Abdullah that his father would remain out of the electoral arena this time has not gone down well with the old guards and the committed party workers, whatever their number now. Is health factor the sole reason behind the decision that Farooq Abdullah will not contest the upcoming Assembly election or there could be other reasons as well? The health factor could be one of the reasons and not the sole reason. After all, the NC president and former Union Minister was quite active in the Parliament and during the election campaign to an extent. The real reason could be different. It could be the fear of another defeat.
Only on May 16, the NC suffered the worst ever defeat in its long electoral history. It contest three Kashmir Lok Sabha seats and it lost all the three, despite the fact that the Congress supported the NC candidates as per the understanding reached between the two coalition partners. The NC candidates were the sitting Lok Sabha members and Farooq Abdullah was one of them. The others were the outspoken Mehboob Beg and Sharif-ud-Din Shariq. They lost the election to the PDP candidates and the defeat faced by each one of them was humiliating. Mehboob Beg lost to Mehbooba Mufti, Shariq to Muzaffar Hussain Beig and Farooq Abdullah to Tariq Hamid Qarra. Farooq Abdullah lost by a huge margin of over 60,000 votes. That Farooq Abdullah suffered defeat at the hands of Qarra speaks for itself and shows how unpopular the NC had become even in Kashmir valley.
The defeat of Farooq Abdullah was not an ordinary political event in the state. It was an extraordinary event that clearly suggested that the NC had become thoroughly unpopular in Kashmir. No one had ever imagined that Farooq Abdullah would lose the election, but the people of Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency saw to it that he was defeated and defeated very badly.
That the defeat of the party patriarch would shock and rattle the entire party leadership, including Omar Abdullah, was only natural. They are still in a state of shock. The level of confidence among the party leaders could be gauged from the fact that the party has announced the names of 32 candidates for the Assembly election and these did not include the names of Omar Abdullah and Mustafa Kamaal. Both are looking for safe constituencies. There are even reports that Omar Abdullah also may not contest. He may take the Legislative Council route to re-enter the state legislature. The truth is that it is the fear of yet another defeat that has forced the NC not to field Farooq Abdullah in any of 46 Assembly constituencies in Kashmir. It knows that another defeat of the party would be a last nail in the coffin of the NC. Who is responsible for the state of things the NC is in? Obviously, Omar Abdullah and his coterie, who have established their stranglehold over the party. |
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