Dual power centres not to anyone’s advantage: Omar Abdullah todayheadline

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday said that the Kashmir issue is yet to be resolved and hoped that it should happen soon. The CM said that he is running a stable government and the Prime Minister and home minister have assured him that there won’t be any attempt to destablise or weaken his government and that the mandate of the people would be respected.Addressing his first major press meet here in Srinagar after becoming CM, he said he wished to see a free and open media which would report facts on the ground without any interference or pressures.

“For a moment, even if we think that the issue of this side of J&K has been resolved… there is another side of J&K across the LoC. When BJP says the Kashmir issue has been resolved forever, does that mean the issue of the other side of J&K has been resolved as well,” Abdullah asked, adding, “We cannot say that. The Kashmir issue is still there. We can keep debating whether it is on this side or the other side. But the issue hasn’t been resolved for ever. We want it to get resolved.”

He also rejected reports of him being under pressure to join the BJP or NDA and termed it as “rumours spread on the hot hamams in winters”. He said that from the very first day of assuming the office of CM, the PM and HM had said only one thing to him — that the people of J&K have made a choice — and made the BJP to sit in the opposition.