NEW DELHI: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on Saturday stepped up his demand for the restoration of statehood, urging the Centre not to mistake his government’s patience for weakness and asking it to clearly define what it means by the “appropriate time” for restoring the Union Territory’s full status.Addressing a grand workers’ convention at the mausoleum of his grandparents in Hazratbal on the 26th death anniversary of his grandmother, Akbar Jehan, Abdullah said his party had deliberately chosen dialogue over confrontation but warned that restraint should not be seen as surrender.Abdullah said he had given the Centre time to fulfil its promise of restoring statehood after his government took office, but claimed that “the reality is that they want to keep the situation like this”.He alleged that the elected government was being prevented from functioning effectively, accusing the BJP-led Centre of governing Jammu and Kashmir through the Lieutenant Governor. “Why did you (let us) form the government if you will not allow it to function? What is the benefit? Then you should not have conducted the elections,” he said.Calling for clarity, Abdullah asked the Centre to explain what constituted the “appropriate time” for restoring statehood. “I ask them, for God’s sake, how will we know that the appropriate time has come. What do I and my colleagues have to do to reach that appropriate time,” he said.He also questioned whether the Centre’s definition of the “appropriate time” depended on the BJP coming to power in Jammu and Kashmir. Referring to voter participation in parliamentary and assembly elections, he asked how many more elections people would have to contest in the hope that statehood would eventually be restored.While saying his government also wanted local bodies and panchayat elections to be held, Abdullah asserted that the Jammu and Kashmir government would decide the “appropriate time” for conducting those polls, adding that the Centre had turned the people’s patience, decency and silence into “a joke”.
