File photo of Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah addressing J&K Assembly. (PTI photo)

Six-day Monsoon Session of the Jammu & Kashmir Legislature commenced in Srinagar on August 25. It would be the last Session of the present ragtag National Conference-Congress Government, as the next Government would be in place latest by January 4, 2015. As expected, the desperate NC, which suffered the worst ever defeat in its long electoral history in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha election, converted the Monsoon Session into an India-bashing and pro-Pakistan session in a most brazen manner throwing to the wind all Constitutional norms and showing an utter contempt for India.

Its entire objective was to divert people’s attention away from its acts of omission and commission, and utter failure to deliver or hand down to the people a responsive, transparent, accountable, fair and corruption-free administration and demonstrate its closeness to Pakistan and anti-India forces in the Valley under the misguided notion that by taking a rabidly anti-India line, it would be able to improve its poll prospects. It is unlikely to happen. For the NC stands totally discredited.

The NC like the Congress lost all the three Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir and secured a paltry 11.1 per cent of the total votes polled. Even the party president and former Union Minister Farooq Abdullah lost the election. Significantly, this meager vote-share also included some Congress votes, as both the unpopular outfits contested the general election together and fielded three candidates each.

The election results only vindicated those who had been terming the NC, like the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as a sub-regional party, and not a State-level party, and the Congress as a sinking ship since 2004, when the NC and the Congress for the first time forged a pre-poll alliance to contest the Lok sabha election. Sub-regional parties because their support-base is confined only to Kashmir whose land area is just less than 13 per cent. It is the BJP which today represents in the Lok Sabha almost 88 per cent of the State’s land area comprising Jammu province and Ladakh region.

As said, the NC, which has been in the driver’s seat since January 2009, converted the Monsoon Session of the State Legislature into an anti-India platform, with the Congress and the PDP virtually siding with it. It all started on the opening day itself and the man who led the anti-India attack from the front was none other than NC working president and J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. Willfully ignoring the fact that he was Constitutionally, politically and morally bound to protect and advance further the Indian sovereign interests in J&K, he lambasted the BJP-led NDA Government for its August 18 decision to call off the scheduled Foreign Secretary-level talks with Pakistan – talks were scheduled at Islamabad on August 25. New Delhi took a rational and national decision following the utterly unacceptable and gravely provocative meeting between the Pakistan High Commissioner to Delhi, Abdul Basit, and the discredited Kashmiri separatist Shabir Ahmad Shah.

Omar Abdullah misused the floor of the Assembly and crossed all the lines. He held New Delhi responsible for the spurt in ceasefire violations, defended the provocative stance of Basit and taunted the Central Government saying that Pakistan would not stop its anti-India operations unless the so-called Kashmir issue was resolved between the two nations. His suggestion for New Delhi was – “Rethink calling off talks with Pakistan to end ceasefire violations. In fact, he did all that he could to establish that he was a Pakistani spokesperson in the J&K Government.”

Believe it or not, but it is also a fact that Speaker of the Assembly, Mubarak Gul also sided with Omar Abdullah. He said, “Guns won’t fall silent on borders till Kashmir is resolved”. Omar Abdullah also got the support of Minister of State Home Sajjad Ahmad Kitchloo. Endorsing anti-India stance of Omar Abdullah, he said, “Instead of making political statements for political purpose, they (BJP national president Amit Shah and other BJP leaders) should talk to the Central  Government to take immediate necessary measures for addressing this burning issue” (read Kashmir issue). The Congress Ministers and Legislators watched the anti-India acts as a mute spectator, thus leaving none in any doubt that they were with the Chief Minister, the Speaker and the MoS Home. Sajjad Kitchloo is the same person under whose nose the fanatics unleashed a reign of senseless brutalities in Kishtwar (Jammu) on Hindus on August 9, 2013.

On August 26, the NC and the PDP sung the same song as far as their attitude towards those anti-India Kashmiri stone-throwers was concerned. While replying to the PDP demand that “amnesty” be given to stone throwers, NC Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar said that the Government has decided to grant amnesty to the youth who were involved in the stone throwing incidents in the past and that the Government is taking measures so that the cases registered against them in the past shall be withdrawn. “Amnesty to youth (radicalised enemies of India) will be announced very soon,” he told the Assembly. This policy decision was yet another desperate move of the NC to strike a chord with its estranged constituency, and also an attempt to convince Islamabad that it would never disappoint it. Islamabad, like all Kashmiri leaders, without any exception, and Kashmir-based commentators and their ilk in Delhi and elsewhere have been consistently demanding release of the anti-India stone throwers since 2010, which they term them as “innocent unemployed” youth.

And on July 27, the NC took one more step to tell New Delhi that the NC-led J&K Government doesn’t care for it and that it would go to any extent to express solidarity with Pakistan, which continues to bleed India and advocate the need for a dialogue with New Delhi at the same time after the cancellation of the scheduled visit of Indian Foreign Secretary Sujata Singh to Islamabad. What did the NC do? NC MLC Devedenra Singh Rana, who is very close to Omar Abdullah moved a resolution in the Legislative Council urging “Centre to resume dialogue with Pakistan to ensure peace and stability in the Subcontinent and the State of Jammu and Kashmir in particular”. The chairperson of the council, Amrit Malhotra accepted the resolution for discussion and it could take place anytime from now. Malhotra is a Congressman and close to JKPCC president Saif-ud-Din Soz (a Kashmiri), who has repeatedly said that J&K is a trilateral issue and there is the need for Srinagar-Delhi axis, Srinagar-Islamabad axis and Islamabad-Delhi axis.

It is hardly necessary to point out what is the NC is upto. Suffice to say that the NC has crossed the fine line, vitiated the whole atmosphere in the State in general and Kashmir Valley in particular and it would be suicidal for India if this party of secessionists is allowed to remain in office for some more days. Its continuation in office is fraught with very serious consequences. Time is running out and running out fast. Nothing would be more unfortunate than that the President of India should fail to intervene to protect the Indian Constitution and unity and integrity of India. He needs to direct State Governor NN Vohra to send a comprehensive report to him on what transpired in the J&K Legislature between August 25 and 27, so that he can take necessary action and the impending disaster is averted before it is too late.