On the occasion of 79th Independence Day, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah hoisted the tricolor at Bakshi Stadium here and gave a address to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, calling for unity, justice and restoration of the constitutional situation of the state.
Opening his speech on a serious note, the Chief Minister expressed his heartfelt condolences to the families affected in the Kishtwar due to the CloudBust tragedy.
“As we celebrate our Independence Day, at the same time we mourn the loss of precious life in cloudbukes in Kishtwar. I want to tell the people of the installment and the people affected by this disaster, the government can reach the shoulder to the shoulder with them. Laps,” he said.
In more than a decade, while marking the address of his first Independence Day from Bakshi Stadium, Omar Abdullah reflected seismic political changes as he last addressed the kingdom from this platform.
He said, “It has been 11 years since this phase addressed the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Then, our own identity, our own special position, our own flag and our constitution. Today, there is no one of them. Even the situation of surprising is not ours.”
The Chief Minister questioned the long wait for the return of democracy in J&K and the incomplete expectations of meaningful announcements from New Delhi.
“Some of our friends and relatives kept telling me this year that there would be an announcement from Delhi. We did not wait. The truth is that, the light I had often talked about is a little reduced – but I am still not ready to give up or accept that nothing will change,” he said.
Omar Abdullah asked if the purpose of integrating J&K was completely and equally with the rest of the country.
“Have you had a similarity? Are we really equal to the rest of the country? Have we really improved? If yes, I will be silent. But if not, tell me if not, what was our mistake that we find ourselves here today?”
Sharing his personal experience of leading both a state and now a center region, he was clear in his criticism:
“I don’t want a person to be the Chief Minister of a center area. This system of governance looks good on paper, but really fails. It is a governance structure designed for failure.”
He said that he was disappointed with the comments made by the SC Bench and the Pahalgam incident, which was being used as the pretext of delay in the state. The CM said that the restoration of the state should be the first step to create a strong Jammu and Kashmir. There should not be a situation where the bureaucracy is not accountable to the elected government.
The Chief Minister said that no one should aspire to become the CM of a center area. “People will ask why you participated in the UT’s election process, but I did not know that it would be so difficult. The situation has come to such a way that the decisions of the cabinet have been stopped and not issued. What will the elected government do if its hands are tied”, CM said.
The CM compared the functioning of the current administration to “tie the front legs of the horse and then to run it,” citing examples where the cabinet’s decision was stopped, replaced, or left unpublished.
Despite these obstacles, he outlined achievements in the last 10 months, including:
• Passing a resolution in the J&K assembly to restore a special situation and the state.
Cabinet approval for state restoration.
• Budget decisions benefiting education, health, social welfare, transport, tourism and agriculture.
• Quick restoration of electricity during winter outage. • Extension of overall agricultural development program (HATP).
• Inauguration of “Mission Youth” to create livelihood for 4-4.5 lakh youth.
• Increase the development fund of Mlas to strengthen elected representatives.
He emphasized the immediate need to restore the “triple series of accountability” imagined by the Supreme Court, ensuring that the bureaucracy is accountable to the assembly for the elected government and the elected government.
Expressing disappointment over the restoration of the state’s restoration for security incidents, the Chief Minister said: “We are being punished for the Pahgam attack – an attack J&K people condemned themselves from Katua to Kupwara.
He reminded that during the previous elected governments, incidents related to extremism continued to decline and the elected leadership proved its ability to maintain peace.
He said, “Trust us once – we did not fail first, and ready to God, we will not fail in future,” he said.
Announcing the movement of people in response to the Supreme Court’s eight-week deadline to listen to the state case, Omar Abdullah announced: “We will not sit in vain. In the next eight weeks, we want to tell all 90 assembly constituencies, every village, every house, people once again. We will gather hundreds of thousands of signatures to present me with the Central Government and Supreme Court.”
The Chief Minister concluded with a stirring appeal to regain the inclusive and equal India imagined by the freedom fighters:
“We have to achieve the India for which Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, Subhash Chandra Bose, and countless others sacrificed their lives. An India where the right to participate in equality, brotherhood, and democratic struggle is guaranteed for all.”
The Chief Minister also inspected the parade and took a salute in an impressive march past along with the brass and pipe bands of J&K police and school students, besides the students of Jammu -Kashmir Police, security forces, schools. In the light of the disaster colliding with Kishtwar village, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah decided to abandon the cultural programs prescribed for the morning Independence Day celebrations.
