Srinagar, May 1:
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah claimed that the Narendra Modi-led NDA government had attempted to make People’s Conference president Sajad Lone the chief minister of the state through “jod tod (manipulation)”, so there was nothing surprising if Modi claimed that he was in touch with Trinamool Congress legislators in Bengal. Modi had warned West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee at an election rally on Monday that at least 40 Trinamool Congress MLAs were in touch with the BJP and that they would desert their party once the BJP won the general election. The National Conference leader said that five years of Modi’s rule had proved extremely costly for J&K and the situation was so bad that the assembly election could not be conducted on time for the first time in the state since 1996. “BJP is not doing it for the first time… They have formed a habit of forming governments with jod tod. They did the same in Goa and also in Karnataka, but the court stopped them from doing so. They did the same in Northeast,” Abdullah said while addressing an election meeting in Shopian. “You must remember, last year they tried to make Sajad Lone chief minister of this state through jod tod. So, if BJP is doing this effort in West Bengal, there is nothing new or surprising in this,” said Abdullah. He said efforts were on to appoint a new government at the Centre on May 23. “We can start talking with the new government about ban on Jamaat-e-Islami and about restarting political dialogue,” Abdullah said. He blamed the PM for the deteriorating situation in the state and asked Modi to compare the situation in J&K with that in 2014, when the Abdullah led NC-Congress government had handed over the reins of the state to the PDP-BJP coalition. “In what circumstances did we hand over the state to Modi? How many people participated in elections in 2014 and what is the turnout in 2019? What was the militancy graph then and what is the situation now? How many people took to arms under Modi?” Abdullah asked.
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