Fotedar’s favourite axis: Mufti-Soz-Geelani

‘Omar knows nothing of accession; Chidambaram knows nothing of J&K; Karan Singh is a Maharaja Bahadur’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Jun 15: Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s confidante and key advisor on Jammu & Kashmir matters, Makhan Lal Fotedar, has hogged headlines in Srinagar on account of his outlandish likes and dislikes in politics. After remaining in oblivion for years, Fotedar has stirred a hornet’s nest in the principal ruling party, National Conference, over its describing the accession as “conditional” but has, at the same time, called PDP patriarch, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, as the “most competent Chief Minister” and the Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani as his “good old friend”.

Fotedar has been camping in Srinagar after participating in Mata Khirbhawani festival at Tulmulla last week. Hitting hard on NC over its ‘accession-not-merger’, Fotedar has disputed Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s knowledge and locus standi with his own argument: ‘Omar was not born when accession happened’. NC’s spokesman, in a quick reaction, maligned Fotedar as ‘an old snake in the (Congress-NC) sleeve’. “Why don’t they move out, if there are snakes in the Congress party?”, Fotedar asked bluntly in reply to a scribe’s question today.

“We won’t quit for two near-dead snakes. We are pretty comfortable with Congress in the coalition”, said a senior NC leader and Minister in Omar Abdullah’s Cabinet without naming Omar’s in-house enemies. Ask anybody. There will be invariably two names---Makhan Lal Foedar and Saif-ud-din Soz. And the old pundit of Kashmir’s politics himself makes his favourite axis complete. He recognizes “only Soz” as the ultimate authority in J&K Pradesh Congress Committee and, paradoxically, extols author of Kashmir’s “Self Rule”, Mufti Sayeed, as the “most competent Chief Minister”.

“There would have been no Kashmir problem, had the Congress allowed Mufti to continue as Chief Minister for full term of six years”, Fotedar has said in PDP founder’s praise. The NC stalwart views it in sharp contrast. “There would have been no Kashmir, had they allowed Mufti to rule for six years”, he claimed. He insisted that it was none but Mufti, with full support of Delhi people like Fotedar, A S Dulat, Ram Jethmalani and even Pranab Mukherjee, who flushed all of India’s Kashmir-related achievements of over 60 years down the toilet in 2008 and helped hardliners like Geelani and Massarat Alam become icons of the new generation in Valley.

While praising Mufti and Soz, Fotedar has, in his today’s interviews to media, belittled the biggest votary of NC-Congress bonhomie, Dr Karan Singh, as a king. “He is a Maharaja and we are the common, ordinary people”, Fotedar is reported to have said with a dig on the seniormost Congress leader and the party’s only potential successor to President Pratibha Patil. Transforming his old physics into a new chemistry, Fotedar has also called Geelani “as my old friend”. “He is a very good friend of mine. We used to be together in (J&K) Assembly”, Fotedar is reported to have said today.

Again interestingly, Fotedar has not spared even his party’s pride, Home Minister P Chidambaram. Not for his Naxalite failures. Obviously, for providing every possible support and shelter to Omar. According to Fotedar, Kashmir was all Greek to Chidambaram.

Indisputably, Omar Abdullah has not demonstrated desired competence and confidence in handling the crises in the last two years. Most of his election promises, as also the priorities flagged in NC’s Vision Document, are unfulfilled. Drive against corruption has remained restricted to clerks and Patwaris and the high profile politicians and bureaucrats, involved in serious matters of corruption and favouritism, are all scot free and, in fact, enjoying things with impunity.

Employment promises, including SKEWPY and Rangarajan, have proved to be a mirage. Despite Omar’s consistent pushing, bureaucracy has not let the Chief Minister’s unpublicized dream of ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ (6-lane N-S-E-W connectivity) in Valley realize in last 30 months. But, packed to capacity with all-time high tourist rush, Kashmir is calm and predominantly in favour of peace. Schools and shops are open and 0ver 80% people have participated in Panchayat elections. Nobody has died in street demonstrations since middle of September 2010. Is this enduring peace compatible to Omar-Sonia-Chidambaram-Karan Singh axis or Fotedar-Mufti-Geelani-Soz axis, everybody is entitled to hold an opinion.

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