Omar to write his parliament speech in a book

NEW DELHI: Winning accolades for his impassioned speech during the trust vote in the Indian parliament last week, Jammu and Kashmir National Conference president Omar Abdullah now plans to pen down in a book the incidents that led up to his speech.         

"The dust has not yet settled around my speech and the comments continue. Some of them critical, some indifferent but most of them positive and appreciative of what I said," Abdullah wrote in his blog on his party's website http://jknc.org/blog/.

"I wanted to narrate the incidents that lead up to my speech in the parliament but I guess I will save them for my book if I ever get down to writing one," wrote Abdullah.

The house was adjourned following the commotion propped by the cash-for-vote scam on July 22 and many MPs, including Omar Abdullah, were asked to cut short their speech.

Many readers have posted their comments on the blog applauding Abdullah for his speech.  

"The fact that my speech struck a chord in the valley and the rest of the country as well is a unique experience for me. The sad, but somewhat predictable, reaction to my speech in Jammu has been a source of much anguish for me."

"The political leaders with a vested interest are keeping this anger alive in Jammu. It obviously did not suit them to read what I said about the land with what I said about the yatra because that would have changed everything.”

In his speech, Abdullah said he would not make the "mistake" of standing again with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

"I made the mistake of standing with them once (in the previous dispensation in which he was a minister of state). I will not make the same mistake again," Abdullah said forcefully while participating in the closing moments of the debate on the trust motion in the Lok Sabha.

"I am an Indian. I am a Muslim. I'm for the deal," he maintained.

Pointing to the decades for which the annual Hindu pilgrimage to the Amarnath shrine in Kashmir had been conducted along a route that is largely populated by Muslims, Abdullah said: "As long as there are Muslims in Kashmir, the yatra (pilgrimage) will continue."

Launching an attack on the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), Abdullah wrote on the blog: "It's a pity that when they burn my effigy (in Jammu) they do not also tell the people that until a few days ago they were calling me up and sending me messages to cast my vote along with the (BJP-led) NDA in parliament."

Abdullah, MP from Srinagar constituency, is a third generation politician of Kashmir.

His grandfather Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah pioneered the movement against the Dogra autocratic rule in Kashmir before India's independence in 1947. Farooq Abdullah, Omar's father, was elected as chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir after the founder of National Conference, the senior Abdullah, died in 1982.