Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Sunday defended the National Conference's decision to invite moderate Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq to a proposed protest in Delhi next week, and accused the BJP and sections of the media of deliberately creating a controversy to divert attention from the party's campaign for the restoration of statehood to J&K.Addressing a 'Delhi Chalo!' rally here ahead of the proposed protest in the capital on July 20, Abdullah alleged that the controversy surrounding the invitation had been manufactured to undermine the National Conference's political programme.
"We invited more than 50 people. Out of all those names, they picked just one – a religious leader from Kashmir. Their favourite television channels turned that single invitation into a prime-time controversy, claiming that the National Conference invited a separatist leader to Delhi," Abdullah said.
He also questioned what he described as contradictory claims by the BJP and sections of the media.
"For years, I have heard the home minister (Amit Shah) repeatedly say that there are no separatists left in Kashmir. BJP leaders also claim that separatist thinking has been eliminated under Prime Minister Narendra Modi," Abdullah said, arguing that if those claims were true, it was contradictory to simultaneously portray the invitee (the Mirwaiz) as a separatist.
"If separatist ideology has indeed been eliminated, the person we invited cannot possibly be a separatist. And if he is a separatist, you are effectively saying that the prime minister and the home minister misled the country. Both cannot be true at the same time," Abdullah, who is also the vice-president of National Conference, said.
The entire controversy had been manufactured solely to shift public attention away from the National Conference's demand for the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir's statehood, he added.
He also said that the large turnout at the rally in Jammu demonstrated that people across J&K remained firmly committed to the demand for statehood, despite attempts to divert the public discourse.
"The Centre should understand from today's gathering that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are not silent on the issue of restoring statehood," he said.
