SRINAGAR: In his first speech in Jammu and Kashmir Assembly after being elected as Chief Minister in the state’s first Assembly polls post Article 370 abrogation, Omar Abdullah on Friday said people of J&K want to live with honour, so the Centre must restore full fledged statehood.
He termed the resolution on restoration of J&K’s special status and constitutional guarantees passed by Assembly as “historic resolution”, stating that “there is something in the resolution, given how Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have reacted”.
“We want to live with honour. That is why we are demanding statehood. Our identity has been hurt through August 5, 9 decisions and restoring statehood would be start of healing the wounds,” Omar said while speaking in Assembly on motion of thanks on Lt Governor’s address.
“I am thankful to Lt Governor that he cleared the resolution passed by J&K cabinet on restoration of statehood. I took this resolution to PM and urged him to restore it. My meetings with the PM and HM were successful. And I hope the process to restore statehood to J&K will start soon,” he said.
Referring to passage of resolution on restoration of special status in Assembly, Omar said, “We have passed resolution which represents aspirations of people of J&K and through which the world comes to know that our view and consent was not taken on August 5, 2019 decision and we want our special status be returned back”.
“We have to look for the future. I know we don’t have much hope of getting anything from this central government but they will not be there forever,” CM said.
Meanwhile, irked by the eviction of BJP MLAs from Assembly, LoP Sunil Sharma warned of running a “parallel government” if Omar government’s behaviour doesn’t improve.