On a cold autumn day, Opposition National Conference suddenly raised the political temperatures in the valley when its president Omar Abdullah, former chief minister Farooq Abdullah along with party legislators rushed to Raj Bhawan and threatened to boycott all future elections if the ‘‘rigging’’ in recent Assembly by-polls was not properly investigated. The party also accused the Mufti Mohammed government of facilitating the assassination of its leaders by withdrawing their security cover and sought the government’s intervention on the issue.Omar Abdullah said they met the Governor, Gen (Retd) S.K. Sinha, to ‘‘highlight the complete violation of model code of conduct by the Mufti government during the recent by-elections, and the blatant misuse of state government machinery’’. The party has also sought an inquiry, preferably by an SC Judge. ‘‘We have no faith in Mufti government after the Lok Sabha elections. We had some hope that the Election Commission would not take a partisan role but they too disappointed us this time around,’’ said Omar. ‘‘If our faith in the democratic process is not restored and an inquiry not ordered, we may come to a situation where NC will boycott all future elections,’’ said the leader.He also questioned as to why all the killings of political leaders and other such incidents were taking place in South Kashmir, ‘which is a PDP hub’’. ‘‘I told him (Governor) that it alarms us and we want this issue to be probed. We raised the issue of the withdrawal of security to our colleagues by the Mufti government. Mirza Safdar Beigh is a classic case. He was evicted from his government quarter in Srinagar without providing him any alternate accommodation. He had no choice but to go back to his ancestral home in Anantnag. If he was allowed to live in Srinagar, he might not have become victim of the militants,’’ said the NC chief. ‘‘Now they are throwing out Mushtaq Lone’s wife,’’ he lamented.However, when contacted, Minister of State for Home, Abdul Rehman Veeri termed the NC accusation as baseless and laced with ‘‘ulterior political motives’’. ‘‘As far as the withdrawal of security is concerned, there is a committee set up by the former NC government itself, comprising all security agencies. They assess as per the threat perception and calculate the security needs of a protected person. The government has no role in it,’’ said Veeri. ‘‘And if you go by the statistics of political workers killed in South Kashmir during the past two-three months, we (PDP) have lost 17 workers. This clearly proves that their (NC) allegation is baseless. Most of the times, the killings of political workers takes place because of their own complacence. He (Safdar Beigh) had three PSOs and at the time of the killing, there was just one with him and he too was not carrying his rifle,’’ the minister said.National Conference has meanwhile decided to boycott all the functions of the CM, including his speeches in the State Assembly to protest the alleged rigging in polls.
