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NC to take stock on Friday

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

The working committee of the National Conference will meet on Friday to take stock of the situation arising out of the Centre's rejection of the Jammu & Kashmir assembly's resolution on autonomy and chalk out its strategy 'for continuing the struggle'.

On Tuesday, Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, president of the National Conference, had told a television channel that the party could break away from the National Democratic Alliance if the need arose. State Law Minister P L Handoo, who left for Calcutta on Wednesday morning, indicated that the National Conference and the state government 'will not rest until we attain our objective'.

A senior official at J&K House in New Delhi said Abdullah threw a fit on learning that the prime minister's office had sought a copy of the assembly resolution at 2330 IST on the night of July 3 when the decision to turn it down was taken one and a half hours earlier. Pankaj Jain, resident commissioner of J&K House, had delivered the resolution to the PMO on the night of July 3, it is learnt.

Early Tuesday morning, Dr Abdullah was informed about the Union Cabinet's impending decision by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Thereafter, Dr Abdullah stormed out of the prime minister's Race Course Road residence and refused to meet reporters, the official said.

The National Conference working committee will discuss the Vajpayee government's 'duplicity' in the matter. Reportedly, Vajpayee had assured Dr Abdullah that the issue of J&K's autonomy would be discussed in Parliament. After the Union Cabinet's decision, this appears doubtful.

But the focus of the working committee members will be how to galvanise the people of J&K on the issue.

The BJP, on Wednesday, welcomed the Union Cabinet's decision. Party spokesman Venkaiah Naidu told reporters, "We are happy the resolution was rejected because it encourages dangerous trends."

Congress spokesman Anand Sharma, however, took the Vajpayee government to task for 'mishandling the issue'. As a result, former Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee chief G S Tohra and Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta have voiced similar demands, he said. "What is more disturbing is that the constituents of the NDA are expressing divergent views on the issue," he pointed out.

Sharma said the demand for more powers by the states was nothing new and the R S Sarkaria Commission had been appointed by the Congress government to deal with the matter. "What is needed is the expeditious conclusion of these issues," he said. But he emphasised that "devolution can never be related with the type of autonomy demanded by the J&K assembly".

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