‘People have found their voice’: Omar Abdullah on passage of Article 370 resolution

Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on Friday said people of the Union Territory have ‘found their voice’ after the passage of the resolution on Article 370, a legislation that gave special status to the former state and was scrapped in August 2019.

The public’s feeling over the loss of Article 370 was one of ‘suffocation,’ he claimed, adding that it now seems a ‘burden’ is off their shoulders.

“After its (resolution’s) passage, I am happy people have found their voice and they are able to talk,” Abdullah said in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly on what was the third straight day of ruckus in the House over the resolution.

Further, the chief minister, speaking on the vote of thanks to the Lieutenant Governor’s address, called the first session of the newly-elected Assembly ‘historic in terms of agenda’ despite being short in duration.

The session began on Monday and concluded on Friday.

Meanwhile, Abdullah mentioned that ‘things have changed so much’ from when he spoke in the Assembly previously, as an opposition member in 2018, and now, as the first CM of the Union Territory.

“I got an opportunity to talk in the House after a long time. In March 2014, I spoke on the governor’s address as chief minister, and in 2018 as the opposition. So much has changed since then and we have lost a lot,” he remarked.

Jammu and Kashmir lost its statehood on October 31, 2019, and became a Union Territory. The government made Ladakh, until then a part of the erstwhile state, a separate a Union Territory.