Indo-Pak relations have direct bearing on JK: Omar

Jammu: Asserting that Indo-Pak relations have direct bearing on the peace and development of Jammu and Kashmir, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Wednesday expressed the hope that the restoration of dialogue process between the two countries would be taken to the logical end.
Addressing a public gathering in Rajouri, the Chief Minister said that the peace was pre-requisite to economic prosperity and all round development. “You have witnessed the benefits of peaceful 2011 in the shape of economic activities with fast tracking of development across the State,” he added.
The Chief Minister said that while his government is facilitating political addressing of the political issues of Jammu and Kashmir with focused attention, it is wholeheartedly involved in the resolution of day-to-day problems of the people making justice and equitable development benchmark of governance.
“History is witness to the path breaking and innovative initiatives taken by the coalition government in the State on political and development fronts to restore peace and march ahead on road to prosperity,” Omar said
Denouncing opposition People’s Democratic Party’s “petty politicking and false propagandist approach to astray people and divert their attention from the large scale development process set in by the coalition government in the State,” Omar Abdullah said that self praising and slogan raising has remained characteristics of this party since its inception. “This party (PDP) is habitual of selling the good deeds of others in their own name,” he said adding that the party miserably failed to deliver on its own when it was at the helm in the State.
Citing the example of opening of Uri-Muzaffarabad road by the two heads of the countries of India and Pakistan, the Chief Minister said that the PDP leadership were “still selling the initiative under their brand name.”
“Same is case with so many other initiatives”, he added.
Taking PDP leadership to task for fooling the people on various counts including on the issue of corruption, the Chief Minister said that during the PDP dispensation, the party did nothing solid to address the menace of corruption. He said it is his government which constituted State Accountability Commission, strengthened Accountability Commission and brought in Public Service Guarantee Act to check the corruption at all levels and book the culprits under the law.
“Removing a few officials from service to pretend to be against corruption is something else and enforcing law to bring everyone from top to bottom in the government under the public scan and subservient to the law of the land is something different”, he added taking another dig on PDP which during its tenure removed some officials from the service on corruption charges but most of them re-entered back in the service through court verdicts as the cases where too weak to stand the test in the court of law.