Ours is not a "father-son" party: BJP to Omar Abdullah

BJP today hit out at Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah for his remarks on developments within the party saying that unlike others, theirs was not a "father-son" or "mother-son" party.

"Omar is unable to appreciate that... BJP is a party of healthy inner-party democracy because unlike some other parties, BJP is not a 'father-son' or 'mother-son' party," BJP national executive member and chief spokesperson in J-K, Dr Jitendra Singh, said here in reaction to Abdullah's tweets.

The J-K CM had yesterday said that it should not matter to BJP that its patriarch LK Advani had quit since his opinion had been ignored by the party.

"If his opinion didn't matter to you yesterday, why is his resignation a crisis for you today?" Omar had said in a tweet on microblogging site twitter.Com.

The remarks followed Advani's announcement that he was stepping down from key party fora.

Meanwhile, Omar today expressed surprise over Advani's projection in certain sections as a symbol of secularism in the NDA coalition.

"LK Advani as the NDA's mascot of secularism. Who would have imagined!!!!!!" Omar, whose National Conference was a constituent of the alliance from 1999-2003, said in another tweet.

Reacting to the fresh comments, Singh said that although the J-K CM had received his training in politics under former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, he still needed to learn a lot from the legacy of Vajpayee and Advani enshrined in the BJP.