Omar Finds Father Farooqs Name Is A Liability

He wanted to fly planes but landed in politics and as he pilots his maiden campaign to get into Parliament, the 27-year-old heir to Jammu and Kashmirs most famous political family finds himself hitting some rough patches.

Omar Farooq, son of state Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, does not see the family name working to his advantage. It seems to be a hindrance, he says.

The decade-long violence in Kashmir was completely unnecessary, he says adding that some people misled the youth and in turn we got disaster.

Farooq says he will try to persuade Kashmiri militants to give up their guns but knows this is not easy. I want to mix with the youth. I will tell them that they can rely on me. I am not promising jobs to all of them. I know that is not humanly possible. I will make them stand on their own feet, bring them into the national mainstream and remove them from the path of destruction.

A candidate of the ruling National Conference (NC) in the Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency, the young man is upset by charges from opponents and media commentators that the Congress withdrew its contestant on a request from his father.

The Congress has announced the withdrawal of its candidate in my favour and the press screams that my father spoke to the Congress leaders and got it done. Dad has nothing to do with it, he says.

Asked if he hopes to succeed his father as Chief Minister in case the elder Abdullah decides to enter national politics, Farooq answers with a firm no. He says he wants to pursue a different kind of politics, to get closer to the people. I want to make a difference for the better, he says. I want to talk to the people, reach to them understand their grievances, he said.

As a member of Parliament he will fight tooth and nail with Delhi for funding developmental projects (in his state), and ask the Centre to stop playing games.

I dont want the Centre to play games - let them complete the railway project. If they can do it for Konkan, why not Kashmir. Mere laying of foundation stones would not suffice, Farooq says hinting at last years foundation stone laying spree by Prime Minister IK Gujral in the state.

Farooq discloses that he wanted to become a pilot, but somehow that didnt happen and here I am in politics. In his school days he used to design artificial aircraft cockpits and read lots and lots of books on aircraft. In one of the career counselling sessions at Lawrence School, Sanawar in Himachal Pradesh, he correctly answered all questions on aircraft and his teacher told him: You will become a pilot.

That was music to his ears, he recalls. However, he was persistently told by people around him that I would be in politics one day.

Born in the British town of Rochford in Essex on March 1O, 1970, Omar spent five-and-a-half years there before coming to India where he watched his grandfather Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah being greeted by crowds so big like he had never seen before. It was amazing, he remembers.