Mohd Irfan
Chief Minister of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, in an interview with BBC News, responded to various contentious issues.
The interview, which has also been uploaded by CM Omar Abdullah on his Twitter account, features him answering questions in the BBC program “Hard Talk”.
Host: Thank you for joining us. You are back in office as Chief Minister, a position you last held about ten years ago. I am also very mindful that five years ago, you were in detention, held by the Indian authorities. How does it feel to be back as Chief Minister now?
CM Omar: It feels somewhat strange. As you mentioned, five years ago, I was a guest of the government—I was detained following the Indian government’s decision to change Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional status. Subsequently, I lost the parliamentary elections last year. So, to imagine that just a few months after that defeat, I would be able to lead my party to victory in the assembly elections and assume office again is both surreal and humbling. Because it shows that in politics, and especially in electoral politics, ‘there is nothing static.’
Host: Many people, both inside and outside Jammu and Kashmir, were surprised by your decision to contest the assembly elections under the new status of Jammu and Kashmir as a Union Territory. Your party won, and now you are back as CM. However, back in June 2024, you had categorically stated, ‘I will not enter the assembly of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir,’ as you saw it as a demotion imposed by the Delhi government. You had said you would fight for the restoration of statehood and would not humiliate yourself by entering this UT assembly. But you changed your mind. Why?
CM Omar: People whose opinions matter to me, as well as complete strangers, reached out to me in the months leading up to the elections—particularly after I made that statement—and asked me one question: ‘If this assembly is not good enough for you, how is it good enough for us? How is it good enough for candidates to contest or for people to vote in?’ And I had no answer to that question.
Host: You could have called for a boycott instead. If you truly believed this assembly was illegitimate, why not fight it that way?
CM Omar: Even if we had boycotted the elections, the assembly would still have been formed. But in that case, it would have been an assembly without the participation of a significant section of Jammu and Kashmir’s population, who would have abstained from voting. That would not have served our cause.
