NC voted for UPA on nuclear deal for family interest: PDP

Srinagar, Jul 23 (UNI) Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) today alleged that the National Conference (NC) president Omar Abdullah had always made Kashmir politics subservient to his family interests and there was a strong element of this pressure in his vote to the UPA government on nuclear deal yesterday.

Addressing a workers' convention in the central Kashmir district of Badgam, former finance minister Tariq Hamid Karra welcomed Mr Omar's statement in Parliament that he lamentsed not resigning from the NDA cabinet when Muslims were 'massacred' in Gujarat.

''If Mr Omar now feels that his conscience is uncomfortable with his past mistake of continuing in the NDA cabinet despite the genocide of Muslims in Gujarat, we welcome it. But let me tell him that now it was too late,'' Mr Karra added.

He said people are conscious enough to judge this party as they do not deem its vote to secular forces, as a permanent shift in their party's policies but NC, after a visible delay in its decision to vote, had actually sensed the wind blowing in Congress led UPA government's favour.

''Now Mr Omar saying that he will not repeat the mistake by siding with the NDA is a mere rhetoric'', he said, adding that NC has supported third front, Congress and BJP in the past which represents their vacillation.

People know that NC is not an untested political party,'' Mr Karra said.

Mr Karra said NC has always applied political rhetoric for their vote bank politics and crossed limits of political opportunism, when it supported BJP, which had till then established itself as anti- Muslim and a fascist force in the country.

''NC should realize that times have changed and people are now mature enough to judge each and every political party by its performance and they know which party serves them right,'' he added.

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