National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah Thursday said the country has rejected an alternative to the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “second term” is not a “fluke”.
Congratulating Modi, Omar wrote on Twitter, “So the exitpolls were correct. All that’s left is to congratulate the BJP & NDA for astellar performance. Credit where credit is due PM Modi Sahib & Mr AmitShah put together a winning alliance & a very professional campaign. Bringon the next five years.”
A vocal critic of Modi-led NDA government, Abdullah alsorequested the BJP leader to “take everyone along” in the coming fiveyears as “this country belongs to all”.
“We fought the election and tried to have analternative to the BJP and the NDA and put it before the country. The countrydid not accept it. The reality is that the places from where we were expectingthe opposition to win, the number of seats from there has come down rather thangoing up,” Abdullah told reporters here.
“But, today is the day of Modi’s success. I think itwould be wrong if we do not send a message of congratulations to him. ‘Jo jeetawohi sikandar’ (he who wins, is the king),” he said.
“The endeavour should be to take everyone along. Whenhe (Modi) won for the first time (in 2014), people said he won by a fluke, butnow this is not by fluke and the people of the country have given him anotheropportunity,” he added.
The NC leader said while his party played its role, theopposition would have to analyse what went wrong in other states.
“We played our role. We contested three seats and weexpect to win all three. We tried on the fourth seat (Ladakh), but perhaps theCongress helped the BJP to win from there,” Abdullah said.
“The results have not come yet, but the reality is thathad the Congress not conspired there, then the BJP would not have won. Byfielding two candidates, the Congress has done injustice and betrayed thepeople there, particularly the people of Kargil. I hope that the people ofKargil would seek answers from them,” he added.
Listing his expectations from the new government, the formerJammu and Kashmir chief minister said, “There are expectations from theCentre that there will be a better thinking for this state, that the dialoguewould be restarted – whether with Pakistan, of which we saw a little beginningyesterday when the foreign ministers of both the countries were talking to eachother (at the SCO meeting).”
“In the same way, if some steps are taken internally,if the difficulties which we saw in the last few months are minimised and theborder trade be restarted. There are expectations that such steps will be takenso that the people of J-K breathe a sigh of relief,” he said.
Asked if the onus of the loss of opposition parties lay onthe Congress, Abdullah said the party will have to do that analysis.
“Today, we are thinking about the state. We want toassure the people of the state that we will not let their hard work go wasteand will represent the state and its issues in the parliament strongly andprotect the special status of the state. As far as the rest of the country isconcerned, the big leaders in the country should see that,” he said.
Abdullah said the opposition lost most of its steam afterthe Balakot airstrike across the Line of Control.
“Who can say what would have happened if Balakot hadnot happened? But, it is also true that after Balakot, the opposition lost mostof its steam. There were several issues. We can discuss many of them. Whether’chowkidar chor hai’ (watchman is a thief) was a right slogan, whether it wasright to focus on Rafale, whether we presented rural distress, unemployment,economic distress properly or not? If we should have questioned Pulwama ratherthan Balakot?” he said.
“We can do analysis on several such issues, but as goesa saying that ‘once the horse has bolted, what is the point of closing thestable door?’ Now, if we catch hold of the horse after five years, then it isfine, otherwise, it will go ahead,” he said.
Abdullah asserted that the people of Jammu and Kashmirshould not treat the threat to Articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution asordinary.
“Scrapping Article 370 and 35A has been in their (BJP)manifesto before as well. But, we should not think of this threat as ordinary,we will use all of our power to save them,” he said.