NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha member Sheikh Abdul Rashid aka Engineer Rashid criticised Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah for maintaining a “double standard” stance on Pakistan and Article 370. The comments came in as Rashid, accused of terror funding, was on his way to surrender to Tihar Jail on Monday.
“When he is in power, he expresses one opinion, but when he is out of power, he expresses a different one. Omar Abdullah follows a similar pattern. Since 1947, his party has maintained a double standard. However, the time will come when the people will teach them a lesson. They secured votes using Article 370, but now they are not even mentioning it,” Rashid told ANI.
Rashid added that he was ready to extend support to the Jammu and Kashmir CM Omar Abdullah as long as he worked in favour of the Kashmiris.
“We hope CM Omar Abdullah should fulfil all his promises, wherever he will do good I will support him and wherever he won’t work in favour of Kashmiris, We will adjust tooth and nail democratically,” he said.
Earlier, Awami Ittehad Party president had called CM Omar Abdullah the “Nitish Kumar of J&K” for not keeping his poll promise of having a capital for the Union territory.
“Earlier, we used to have two capitals – Jammu in winters and Srinagar in summers. Now, neither Jammu nor Srinagar is our capital. We are protesting to remind CM Omar Abdullah that – he has promised that he will solve this issue,” he had said, adding, “Omar Abdullah makes promises and then takes a U-turn. It will be unfair if we don’t call Omar Abdullah the ‘J&K’s Nitish Kumar – Paltu Ram’.”
Rashid was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in 2019 on charges related to terror funding. He was granted interim bail on September 10 to campaign for the candidates of his Awami Itehad Party.