Farooq Angling For Vice-Presidents Post

Within less than a year of being elected, amid high expectations among his people that he will solve their problems, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah hopes to move into the capital as the nations Vice-president this summer, according to one of his associates.

He wants to hand over his current hot seat to his younger brother, Sheikh Nazir Ahmed, according to a senior leader of his party, the National Conference. Ahmed is general secretary of the party. Abdullah told an interviewer on Sunday that he would not mind retiring as the President of India but added that he was still too young to become either the President or Vice-president this summer. He is 62.

 

His associates claim that he has been offered the Vice Presidents post by United Front leaders and that he is eager to accept. He would like to get away from the constant threat from militants in Kashmir to the relative security of the capital, they say. Among others in the race for to be the next Vice President are Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Najma Heptulla and Karnataka Governor Khurshid Alam Khan. Heptulla seems to have the edge. As a cabinet minister said yesterday, She is a Muslim and a woman. She should make it. As for Abdullah, the minister laughed and said: He has just been elected (as Chief Minister).

Abdullahs backers claim that his elevation to the national stage would help Kashmiris to think of themselves as integral to India. However, similar arguments for the appointment of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed as Union home minister and the election of Zail Singh as the President did not prove to be well-founded.

Abdullahs opponents would be sure to portray his elevation as another act of betrayal. Abdullah had been reviled in the valley during the militancy of the early 1990s for spending more time in the UK and France than in Kashmir. Abdullah was elected Chief Minister in the Assembly elections last September. Many in the valley hoped that the return of an elected state government would bring back normalcy, as the February, 1992, elections did in Punjab. Those hopes have so far been belied, as militancy continues and many in the valley talk of drift in the administration and complain that Abdullah spends too much time in the capital and other parts of the country. Since no single political group has adequate strength in Parliament, he would need the support of either the Congress or the BJP along with that of the United Front. The electoral college for the Vice-presidents election comprises the members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

The BJP may not support Abdullah but the Congress could, specially because Abdullah has a close rapport with AICC General Secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad. Abdullah arranged the votes to ensure that Azad was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Jammu and Kashmir a couple of months ago.