Rehan Qayoom Mir
Srinagar, May 23: Describing Chief Minister Omar Abdullah as a “tourist-in-chief,” Leader of Opposition Sunil Kumar Sharma on Saturday said the CM’s calendar is packed with foreign tours rather than the disposal of files to address issues faced by the common man.
Speaking to news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), Sharma said the Chief Minister is missing over the past 10 days and he is behaving more like a globetrotting traveler than the elected head of a sensitive state like Jammu and Kashmir.
“Omar Abdullah seems to be under the delusion that he is a tourist 24×7 or running a travel blog, not a state. While the Chief Minister is busy on foreign tours, the common man in Jammu & Kashmir is facing a plethora of problems ranging from the absence of electricity, water, and health facilities,” he said.
He said the CM is behaving like a tourist even as he himself is minister in-charge of 18 departments, including Finance, Power Development, General Administration, Tourism, Revenue, and several others. “A normal human being like me cannot do justice to more than one or two departments, but he is a ‘superman’ and he himself controls 50 percent of the administrative departments. How can you abandon the Civil Secretariat and rush off on foreign tours to London and other high-end destinations when you are in control of 50 percent of departments,” Sharma said.
The LoP added that Omar Abdullah’s non-seriousness could be imagined by the fact that a few months ago he wanted to rush to Paris in the middle of Kashmiri growers facing an unprecedented crisis with apple consignments stranded on the highway.
“When the highway was shut and our growers were crying and wailing, our CM planned to proceed on a sightseeing tour to Paris, but he had to abandon the plan after facing criticism,” Sharma said.
He further said that the BJP will soon lodge a missing report over the disappearance of CM Omar Abdullah. “We are going to file a missing report at police station Ram Munshi Bagh over Omar Abdullah’s disappearance. We are also consulting legal experts to discuss whether we can file a Habeas Corpus petition to produce Omar Abdullah before the public of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said—(KNO)
