Omar Abdullah slams Mehbooba Mufti over Dulat remarks, questions silence on claims about her father
With friends like Dulat, who needs enemies? Omar Abdullah dismisses claims on Article 370
JAMMU, April 17: Former Chief Minister and National Conference (NC) leader Omar Abdullah has issued a sharp rebuttal to People’s Democratic Party (PDP) President Mehbooba Mufti over her remarks endorsing controversial excerpts from the latest book by former RAW chief A. S. Dulat. The book alleges that NC President Dr. Farooq Abdullah had privately supported the abrogation of Article 370—a claim that Mehbooba referred to as unsurprising.
Omar Abdullah, addressing reporters in Jammu, questioned Mehbooba Mufti’s apparent readiness to accept the entirety of Dulat’s account as factual. “If Mehbooba ji considers everything A. S. Dulat writes to be true, then should we also believe what he wrote in his earlier book about her father, the late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed?” Omar asked pointedly. He further challenged her to clarify her stance on the previous controversial claims about her father, suggesting that selective acceptance of such revelations undermines credibility.
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, a former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and the founding leader of the PDP, was mentioned in Dulat’s earlier writings in ways that had stirred significant political debate. Omar hinted that if those claims are also deemed accurate by Mehbooba, she should publicly address their implications.
Omar did not stop at counter-questioning Mehbooba but went on to cast doubt on the reliability of Dulat’s narrative. “It has become a habit for Mr. Dulat to dramatize and sensationalize political matters in his books. One must ask whether his intention is to inform or simply to boost sales,” he said. “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” Omar quipped, expressing his disappointment over Dulat’s role in fueling political controversies.
Earlier, Mehbooba Mufti, reacting to the content of Dulat’s new book, had said that the revelations did not surprise her. Speaking in Srinagar, she alleged that the Abdullah father-son duo had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 3, 2019, just days before Article 370 was revoked by the central government. “Farooq Sahib didn’t even attend Parliament on August 5, the day of abrogation. So, nothing in Dulat’s book comes as a surprise to me,” she stated.
In a further swipe, she claimed that Omar Abdullah had met senior BJP leader and then party strategist Amit Shah in 2014 to explore options for government formation in the erstwhile state—suggesting a pattern of opportunistic engagements with the BJP by the NC leadership.