Srinagar, Sep 27: Leader of Opposition (LOP) Sunil Sharma on Sunday accused Chief Minister Omar Abdullah of trying to scuttle the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir by tying a fresh Assembly resolution to the old demand for a pre-1953 constitutional position – a line, the party said, was rejected years ago and had no place in the present debate.
The charge follows Friday’s stormy sitting of the J&K Assembly, when the CM moved a resolution calling on the Government of India for the “immediate and urgent restoration of full statehood” and asked that it be forwarded to New Delhi.
The text opened with the words that it was “in addition to” resolutions passed by the House on June 26, 2000, and November 6, 2024.
The 2000 document is the National Conference government’s autonomy resolution, passed when NC President Farooq Abdullah was chief minister.
The autonomy resolution sought a return to the pre-1953 arrangement, including the old designations of Sadr-e-Riyasat and Wazir-e-Azam.
BJP legislators tore copies of the paper, raised slogans, and walked out.
The LOP accused the CM of trying to “smuggle in” the 2000 autonomy resolution under the cover of statehood.
He said that the AtalBihari Vajpayee government had rejected that resolution and said the BJP would not accept its revival now.
“The BJP is the only party that can give statehood to J&K and is in favour of it. If anyone has sabotaged it, it is Chief Minister Omar Abdullah,” Sharma said. “What was the need to bring the issue of the pre-1953 position now? The same resolution his father got passed in this Assembly, his own son threw into the dustbin while sitting in the lap of the BJP as a central minister. Why rake up a rejected resolution again? It only means they do not want statehood and want to sabotage it. But no matter how many conspiracies they hatch, the BJP government will give statehood to J&K.”
The party’s case is that statehood and pre-1953 autonomy are not the same demand. Statehood, in the BJP reading, is a promise already made by the Centre after delimitation and elections.
Autonomy as defined in 2000, it says, was examined and discarded.
To mention that resolution in a statehood motion, BJP MLAs argued, is to reopen a closed constitutional argument and to give New Delhi a reason to treat the House as divided rather than united on restoration.
CM Omar rejected that reading.
He told the House and later reporters that Friday’s text was “only about the restoration of statehood” and did not seek a vote on autonomy or special status.
Those earlier resolutions, he said, were already the property of the House; the phrase “in addition” was used so that no one could claim the NC had abandoned them.
“How can demanding statehood be anti-national?” he asked.
He said the Centre had spoken of a three-step process — delimitation, elections, then statehood — and that the first two steps were complete.
