We don't have many Muslim leaders on national stage: Omar Abdullah

Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah highlighted the absence of prominent Muslim leaders on the national stage when the community faces challenges, and said Ghulam Nabi Azad could have played the leadership role within the Congress, but his fledgling DPAP is limited to just the Chenab Valley now.

Abdullah emphasised the need for a strong national-level Muslim leader to give Muslims in the rest of the country "some reassurance".

Azad had ended his more than five-decade-long association with the Congress in August 2022 and launched his own party -- the Democratic Azad party (DAP) -- the next month.

"Unfortunately, he (Azad) was a man who would have been on the forefront of the Congress campaign. He would have been on the forefront of the leadership role within the Congress. I don't know what went wrong but I feel bad...we don't have many many Muslim leaders on the national stage," Abdullah said.

Azad not being there is a loss to the wider Muslim community, especially at this time when Muslims are facing such a "brutal onslaught" from the BJP, he said.

He said everyday there is some attack or the other whether on the issue of Mangal Sutra, the distribution of the country's resources, the talk surrounding the Babri Masjid or somebody putting a lock on the Ram temple, and now the latest one being "Muslims will bulldoze the Ram Mandir", he said.

"Why?" he asked. "Are we mad? We have accepted the SC judgement and the Ram Mandir is ready. When have Muslims bulldozed temples in the last 100 years? We have been at the receiving end of it. This is the time when you need a national level Muslim leader to give Muslims in the rest of the country some reassurance. Sadly we don't have that at the moment."

He said the BJP's campaign lacks a central unifying theme, focuses on religious polarisation with inclusion of issues like Pakistan. "Adani and Ambani were not spared in this campaign either which I found particularly surprising . Honestly, none of the Hindu Muslims stuff has surprised me but accusing Adani and Ambani of collecting black money, and that too distributing in trucks. If their one truck had come to my home I'd have been using a plane to campaign,' he said.