SRINAGAR: Opposition National Conference today asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to understand that the present turmoil in the Valley was not due to lack of development but unwillingness of the Centre to address the Kashmir issue.
Reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who is also working President of the party, tweeted “Herein lies the crux of the problem – the unwillingness to accept that development doesn’t solve all problems.”
He was reacting to the Prime Minister’s speech at Bhabhra in Madhya Pradesh where he said, “Be it the Jammu and Kashmir government under Mehbooba Mufti or the central government, we are finding solution to all problems through development.”
Immediately after the Prime Minister delivered his speech, Omar had merely tweeted “finally” but, in a subsequent tweet, voiced his disagreement with Modi’s view that development was the panacea for all problems, including the vexed Kashmir issue.
The National Conference has been insisting that the Kashmir problem was a political and not merely a law and order issue which required a dialogue with all stakeholders. Omar, through his tweet, sought to find fault with the Centre’s perception that development could resolve the Kashmir problem.
Earlier, a National Conference spokesman reacted cautiously to the Prime Minister’s apparent willingness to hold dialogue to end the over a month long strife in the Valley, saying it would wait for “action” and mere words were not enough.
The spokesman said, Kashmiris have been “fed with words for long” and “we only hope that the words now get translated into action” and the unrest is brought to an end through a process of dialogue.
“While we welcome the statement of the Prime Minister on Kashmir today, it should have come much earlier,” the spokesman said.
The Prime Minister today attempted to reach out to people of the restive Kashmir and indicated willingness to hold dialogue in the spirit of of ‘insaniyat (humanity), jamhuriyat (democracy) and Kashmiriyat’, enunciated by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The Valley has been on the boil for over a month now following the killing a Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani on July 8.
PTI