NEW DELHI: President of the National Conference Farooq Abdullah on Monday he attended the monsoon session of Parliament for the first time after an interval of more than one year since the repeal of Article 370. in Jammu and Kashmir.
Abdullah was one of several leaders from Jammu and Kashmir who claimed to have been placed in pre-trial detention in the former state after the Center on August 5 last year repealed Article 370 granting special status to the region.
Abdullah appeared to draw attention in this session in the context of allegations that some leaders in Jammu and Kashmir were illegally detained after the status of Jammu and Kashmir was changed. He was greeted by high-level leaders, including Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari from Congress, Supriya Sule from NCP, A. Raja and Muthuvel from DMK. Karunanidhi Kanimozhi and the president of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) Asaduddin Owaisi in the Lok Sabha chamber where he was sitting in his designated seat in the second row of opposition benches.
During the debate on the repeal of Article 370 in last year’s winter session, several opposition leaders demanded that Abdullah, a seasoned MP, be allowed to attend Parliament. Abdullah had spoken to the media in an emotional interview in Srinagar, saying that he had to break down the door of his house to get out of detention and had rejected the claim of the Union Minister of the Interior, Amit Shah, that he was free. to move.
Farooq Abdullah was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2002 from Jammu and Kashmir and re-elected in 2009. He resigned from the Rajya Sabha in May 2009 and won a seat in the Lok Sabha in Srinagar. Abdullah joined the United Progressive Alliance government as a Cabinet Minister for New and Renewable Energy. Abdullah’s presence will boost opposition support when he addresses the Center on various issues during the Monsoon Session that began on Monday and runs through October 1 amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Abdullah’s presence is also likely to refocus attention on the continued detention of the Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, Mehbooba Mufti. While most of Jammu and Kashmir’s top political leaders have been released, including Farooq and his son Omar Abdullah, on March 13 and March 24, 2020, Mufti continues to be held under the Public Safety Act (PSA).
The last parliamentary session was interrupted on March 25 after the spread of the deadly Covid-19 disease. The government has decided to eliminate question time and instead only written answers will be given in the monsoon session, which will have 36 sessions, 16 each for Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, with no rest on Saturday and Sunday.
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