The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday served a legal notice on Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, asking him to either substantiate his allegations that the party was attempting to "poach" National Conference legislators or issue a public apology.
The notice follows remarks made by Abdullah during an address to party workers on Saturday, in which he alleged that the BJP had been trying to engineer defections within the ruling National Conference. He claimed that a Jammu MLA had been offered between Rs 20 crore and Rs 30 crore through a lawyer associated with the BJP.
The BJP said it would initiate a Rs 100 crore defamation suit against the Chief Minister if he neither produced evidence supporting the allegations nor apologised for making them.
Describing Abdullah's claims as baseless, the notice issued by BJP state unit chief Sat Paul Sharma demands an apology within seven days. It also calls on the Chief Minister to "cease and desist" from repeating the allegations of attempted "poaching".
Abdullah had sharpened his criticism of the BJP-led Central government during his speech on Saturday, saying, “They are designated to the back seats, and that’s where they will remain.”
The exchange comes ahead of the National Conference's planned protest in Delhi on July 20 seeking the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir's statehood. The party has invited several opposition leaders to participate in the demonstration, including Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay and others. Invitations have also been extended to PDP president Mehbooba Mufti and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
Speaking to party workers in Jammu on Sunday, Abdullah said the planned dharna at Jantar Mantar would signal the beginning of "a new method" of pressing the Centre to fulfil its commitment to restore statehood, adding that the government had already been given sufficient time to act.
“We pursued the restoration of statehood for nearly two years, giving enough time to the central government to fulfil its promise made to the people of Jammu and Kashmir,” Omar told the gathering at Maharaja Hari Singh Park in Jammu city, his first major public meeting in the BJP stronghold. “Now, we will start resorting to ‘a new method’ for it from July 20 onwards when we raise slogans for restoration of statehood at our dharna in Delhi,” he said.
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