Omar rules out supporting BJP, says tweets on Vajpayee were misconstrued

Ruling out any post-assembly election alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Monday said that his tweets about conferring Bharat Ratna to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee were misconstrued completely.

"When the UPA government announced its list of recipients of the Bharat Ratna, both my father [former chief minister Farooq Abdullah] and I were critical that Vajpayee's name had been omitted. We had said it that time that it would have been a fitting gesture for the UPA to have conferred this award on him," Abdullah told mediapersons here.

"If it wasn't his [Vajapayee's] birthday in the next few days, I would not have tweeted. I only tweeted this now because I believe it might be fitting for the current government to recognize Vajpayee's contribution [to the nation] with the Bharat Ratna," he added.

Earlier in the day, Abdullah, via a tweet, had raised support for the former prime minister's nomination as a Bharat Ratna recipient, raising speculations that the J-K Chief Minister might ally his NC party with the BJP.

However, Abdullah ruled out any such alliance.

"To my mind, it is inconceivable for a party like the National Conference (NC) to get into any sort of alliance with the BJP," Abdullah said.

"There are issues that the NC will find it very difficult to reconcile itself to, should the BJP require support. So, I don't see a situation like that emerging," he added.

Last year, when the UPA Government had announced the Bharat Ratna for former cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and scientist CNR Rao, the BJP had criticised the Congress for ignoring Vajpayee's contribution to the nation.