After Congress in their manifesto said that they will repeal the Armed Forces Special Power Act, Omar Abdullah has said that during his tenure as Chief Minister some ‘friends in the Congress conspired’ against scrapping the controversial law when he had demanded so.
Speaking to the ANI, Omar said that he only had the support of P Chidambaram.
“I wish they would have mentioned this issue (in the manifesto) earlier when I was the chief minister. At that time, when I demanded AFSPA’s removal, some Congress friends had conspired against it. I do not want to name them. But I got support only from (former Union minister P) Chidambaram sa’ab,” he told ANI.
“If the Congress has mentioned this in their manifesto, I welcome it… It’s better late than never. If they had done this before 2014, we would have worked to lift ASFPA from certain parts of the state,” he added.
Congress Party in their manifesto promised that ‘no constitutional change will be allowed in the special status of JK’. The manifesto also promised to review the dreaded Armed Forces Special Powers Act and reduce Army footprints in J&K.
The Congress also said that they will appoint three new interlocutors if it was voted to power in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
Earlier, PDP President Mehbooba Mufti had said that the Congress has shown great courage by endorsing issues which the PDP had included in their Agenda for Alliance with the BJP.
Meanwhile, criticizing the manifesto, the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely said that important points related to Jammu and Kashmir in the Congress manifesto appeared to be drafted by the ‘Tukde Tukde’ gang.
