Srinagar (The Hawk): How does one advance a cause by remaining neutral? The choice of Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, two former chief ministers of J&K, to forego running as candidates in the assembly elections is a clue to the riddle's solution.
Former chief minister and vice president of the National Conference (NC) Omar Abdullah has stated that he will not run for office unless J&K is granted statehood again.
The People's Democratic Party (PDP) president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti made the exact same statement.
However, it is apparent that both the NC and the PDP would run candidates in the upcoming UT assembly elections, leaving no room for the BJP, which repealed article 370 and reduced the state to the status of a Union Territory.
Will the horses still compete if their riders are absent? Can the two leaders' absence, or their participation in the assembly elections for that matter, help restore statehood?
What happened to the autonomy resolution voted by the state assembly on June 26, 2000, when NC president Dr. Farooq Abdullah was the chief minister, if resolutions issued by the J&K assembly had the constitutional authority?
Since then, NC has expressed regret about the Center's decision to toss the autonomy resolution into the trash.
Why, therefore, didn't the NC or the state government at the time argue the same before the Supreme Court if that resolution had any legal or constitutional validity?
The Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), which was founded in the belief that all like-minded political parties should band together to fight for the reinstatement of articles 370 and 35A and the statehood of J&K, now includes the two parties, NC and the PDP.
Omar declared that the NC will run candidates for each of the 90 seats up for election in the assembly, but Dr. Farooq Abdullah promptly intervened to preserve the PAGD by saying that the numbers would be decided after consulting the parties in the PAGD.
Adversity brings out the strangest in people, but the NC and the PDP are two of the strangest bedfellows it has ever produced. In fact, the NC leaders have long cried foul that the PDP was a creation of the national security services intended to shrink the NC.
When the former established an alliance government with the BJP after the 2015 assembly elections, the NC once again claimed that the PDP was the "Central intelligence birth of the party."
The "saint" and "sinner" have now made the decision to partake in alcohol together for "the greater cause."
It is up to the "saint" to explain how the "sinner" and the "saint" can ever have a similar cause.
In order to restore J&K's special status and statehood, the two parties assert that they have put aside their differences.
Even if the two parties win a landslide during those elections, how would fighting an assembly election accomplish these two goals?
And how would the fact that Omar and Mehbooba chose not to participate in the election lend moral support to the other leaders of the two parties who did participate?
For another 100 years, J&K assembly elections can be won or lost without having any bearing on the repeal of Article 370 and the state's downgrading.
A provision that was inserted in the constitution as a temporary clause was repealed by the nation's parliament. Just now, the Parliament repealed a temporary rule it had established.
Any UT or state assembly in India cannot decide whether or not the abrogation of article 370 was within the constitutional jurisdiction of the nation's Parliament.
The country's Supreme Court or the Parliament itself are the only constitutional authorities with the power to do this.
Elections for assemblies cannot be used as a battlefield for constitutional conflicts. A state cannot become a state by winning an assembly election, either.
Can it really be believed that Omar and Mehbooba are ignorant of these fundamental legal and constitutional principles? Even the most ignorant of their supporters would not accept that.
Every Indian citizen has the basic right to participate in or abstain from voting.
Without casting doubt on their nationalist credentials, a person can also choose whether or not to cast a ballot in a vote.
The two previous chief ministers are the only ones who can understand seeking to avoid elections because J&K is no longer a state or urging voters to support their party because Article 370 needs to be reinstated.
For years, political campaigns have used false promises of rock salt and green handkerchiefs to fleece Kashmiris.
After so many lives were wasted in the pursuit of a goal that turned out to be a phantom, using religious sentiments to win political favours would not be helpful.
Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, as respected leaders of J&K, have a moral and legal need to reflect and determine if attempting to give that "mirage" a rebirth in whatever form is in the interests of anyone other than the nation's adversaries.
(Inputs from Agencies)
