After Mehbooba Mufti, Omar Abdullah warns Centre against removing article 370

The NC chief said that J&K also had a prime minister, but the centre scrapped that. “We’ll take that back one day,” he added. (PTI)

After Mehbooba Mufti, National Conference chief Omar Abdullah too has warned the Centre against the revocation of article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. Addressing a public gathering, the former chief minister said that the centre should not compare J&K with any other state because it joined India on a condition that its identity would be maintained.

He said finance minister Arun Jaitley has threatened that the article that gives special power to the state would be removed. “But Jammu and Kashmir is not like any other state. Other states joined Hindustan without putting any condition. We put conditions, didn’t come for free. We put some conditions to keep our identity intact. We said – we’ll have our own identity, our own constitution, our own flag,” the chief minister said.

The NC chief said that J&K also had a prime minister, but the centre scrapped that. “We’ll take that back one day,” he added. Hours after the statement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hit out at the Congress asking it to clarify whether it supported Abdullah’s remarks.

Omar Abdullah says we want a situation where J&K has a separate PM.

PM Modi takes him to the cleaners at Secunderabad, asks ‘Mahagathbandhan’ leaders to come come clean on whether they support this statement. #IndiaSaysNaMoAgain pic.twitter.com/b02Zm8XucH

— BJP (@BJP4India) April 1, 2019

The statement comes just days after PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti fired a similar warning shot and said the centre will have to re-negotiate the terms and conditions if it scraps article 370 from the state. Mufti had said that Jammu and Kashmir had joined India on some conditions and if those conditions are removed, then the people of the state will have to think again whether to stay with India or not.

“If you give some position under the constitution and you take it away then we will have to think again. Would we even want to remain with you without those terms?….it is not easy to remove article 370. if you scrap article 370 your relationship with Jammu and Kashmir will be over,” Mufti had said.

#WATCH Mehbooba Mufti: If you break that bridge (Art 370)…then you will have to renegotiate relationship b/w India-Jammu&Kashmir, there will be new conditions…A Muslim majority state, would it even want to stay with you?…If you scrap 370, your relation with J&K will be over pic.twitter.com/HlAMZh3KcC

— ANI (@ANI) March 30, 2019

The recent debate was triggered after Arun Jaitley wrote a blog saying the economic development of J&K has been affected by article 35 A.