The way former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah is courting one or the other controversy over Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) it looks even the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership too is enjoying the tantrums and looks as if there is a tacit understanding between the ‘friend-foes’. Farooq Abdullah knows how to cater to the gallery let the issue be any. He has the uncanny mastery of gaining prime space in any media whether in television or the print one. One should not forget that BJP-NC wedlock is much older than BJP-PDP alliance which was a political compulsion and is being pulled on despite all the odds. Farooq Abdullha has been advocating that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should follow Atal Behari Vajpayee’s policy of friendship with Pakistan to find a solution to Kashmir issue, saying he will not be able to win hearts and minds of Kashmiris merely by doling out packages. He went further to say that not only Kashmiris but Muslims in general are feeling whether they are safe in this country. He has been saying that any final solution of the state has to be done with Pakistan. Otherwise we will suffer. The terrorists will keep on coming. Advocating that talking to Pakistan was must, Abdullah said, “it is vital for our survival so that we can progress like other states of India. Other states have reached the moon and we are still on the ground.” And the National Conference leader’s advice for Modi was that he should follow what Vajpayee, a BJP stalwart and a former Prime Minister, did by inviting the then Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf despite the Kargil war as he was clear that if the nation has to progress, then friendly ties with the neighbours are must. And today Farooq says if he goes to Pakistan they will skin him alive. Only he can play such rhetoric to keep himself politically alive and wanted. The National Conference leader also stood by his words, saying PoK belongs to Pakistan and said India fought four wars with Pakistan and during the Kargil war in 1999 India did not violate the sanctity of the Line of Control (LoC) so why not maintain that now also?
