PTI, SRINAGAR: Veteran politician Farooq Abdullah has said the efforts of the Centre’s special representative for Kashmir can move forward only if Dineshwar Sharma’s final report is tabled in the two Houses of Parliament for discussion.
The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, who was re- elected president of the National Conference, the state’s main opposition party, stressed that New Delhi also needed to explain what it wished to achieve by appointing Sharma as a special representative for talks on Kashmir. Different voices emerging from power corridors had reduced him to a “zero” even before he could start the talks, he said.
Abdullah, 80, stressed he had never been against talks, but was “baffled by the lack of clarity” on the Centre’s move. “Even before he (Sharma) was to visit the Valley, there were different voices emerging from New Delhi including that from the minister in PMO (Jitendra Singh) who said Sharma was not an interlocutor,” the ex-chief minister said. Sharma’s mandate, he added, was not clear to anybody in Kashmir.
“So we are confused about what he is and what his agenda is going to be,” the Lok Sabha member told PTI here. Asked why he did not meet Sharma, who was on a four-day visit to the Valley last week, Abdullah replied, “I thought it’s of no use until Delhi makes it clear that he has some powers and that whatever he finally recommends will be taken up in Parliament. That is the only way forward.”
Abdullah also referred to earlier such moves. “The past has shown that none of such efforts has been sincere. Does anyone talk about the report prepared by Dileep Padgaonkar and his team, Radha Kumar and M M Ansari?”
The Congress-led UPA government had appointed the three- member team for talks in Kashmir in 2010. In 2012, it submitted its report which favoured “meaningful autonomy” for the state, while preserving its distinct diversities.
