National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Monday said he expects Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do the “honourable thing” by restoring the statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.“A lot of things can be done as a Union Territory, clearly some things can’t but we expect that J&K will not remain a UT forever. We expect the honourable PM will do the honourable thing and return statehood to JK at the earliest and then the rest of our manifesto will be implemented,” the NC vice president, who is tipped to be the next chief minister of J&K, told PTI Videos.
Abdullah, who led the NC-Congress alliance to a victory in the J&K assembly polls, hoped that the prime minister will fulfil his promise of restoring statehood to the people of the UT.
“The prime minister, the home minister, they are all honourable men. In their speeches and interventions in Parliament, through their representative in the Supreme Court, they have promised restoration of statehood. So I believe it should happen at the earliest. And then obviously our priorities will go forward from there,” he added.
In response to a question, Abdullah said the J&K government cannot afford to have an antagonistic relation with the Centre.
“Once the new government is in place, whoever the chief minister of J-K is, I would expect them to travel to Delhi to meet the PM, the home minister and other leaders to impress upon them that the mandate of the people of J-K was for restoration of statehood, was for development and peace and whoever the CM is, I hope they are able to establish a decent working relationship with the GoI.
“There are far too many problems that J-K has and it cannot afford an antagonistic relationship with the Central government. We will have to find a way of working together, and I hope that the Union government will respect the mandate of the people and will work together with the government of J-K to resolve the problems of the people,” he added.
Abdullah said the NC legislature party will meet to elect its leader which will be followed by an alliance meeting to decide on the leader of the coalition.
“At the moment, it is for the National Conference legislature party to sit and choose its leader; that has not yet been done. I think that my colleagues deserve at least one day to celebrate their victories in their areas, so tomorrow we will do that,” he said.