Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti engage in Twitter war over association with BJP

On April 17, the BJP fielded Malegaon blast accused Sadhvi Pragya as their candidate from Bhopal ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

Pragya, who has been charged under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) by an NIA court, will be contesting against Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh in Bhopal, which goes to polls on May 12.

To this development, former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti responded, "Imagine the anger if I’d field a terror accused." She tweeted:

Imagine the anger if I’d field a terror accused. Channels would’ve gone berserk by now trending a mehboobaterrorist hashtag! According to these guys terror has no religion when it comes to saffron fanatics but otherwise all Muslims are terrorists. Guilty until proven innocent https://t.co/ymTumxgty7

— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) April 17, 2019

Soon, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, who has also been the chief minister of J&K, jumped into the fray, criticising Mehbooba for allying with the BJP in the recent past. Omar tweeted:

“These guys” were your allies until they unceremoniously unseated you. “These guys” have been this way before they came to power in 2014 but you only noticed their sins after June 2018.The desire to remain in power blinded you to their crimes until “these guys” forced you to see! https://t.co/sLdlmHnYlT

— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) April 18, 2019

He was referring to the People's Democratic Party (PDP) forming a coalition government with the BJP in February 2015, when Mehbooba Mufti was CM.

Omar asserted that Mehbooba "was blind to their [BJP's] crimes" until June 2018, which is when the BJP withdrew from the alliance, the government broke down, Mehbooba Mufti resigned as the CM and Governor's Rule was applied to the state.

To this, Mehbooba reminded Omar of the time when he was the Minister of External Affairs in 2001 under the NDA.

Someone’s had a belated reaction to my tweet ! As their first ally from J&K you’d know their true colours since you served as an MoE under NDA. Oddly enough Ram Vilas Paswan resigned post Gujarat carnage on moral grounds but you chose not to. Consume almonds Omar. Improves memory https://t.co/9pT9OWZnVQ

— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) April 18, 2019

The argument heated up with Omar being on the offensive. He tweeted:

When you are done tweeting for your mother you can tell her I’m more than happy to debate my 3 years with Vajpayee Sahib v/s her 4 years with Modi ji but I’d rather do that directly with her & not with her understudy. https://t.co/vCZo7mwOpa

Story continues below Advertisement

Remove Ad

— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) April 18, 2019

Initially, the reference to "her mother" wasn't clear. Later, they seemed to be directed at "some hyper kid or enthu cutlet", who seemed to "have gotten hold of Mehbooba's Twitter handle". It was read in context with renowned journalist Smita Prakash's tweet:

It appears as if a random person has gotten hold of Mehbooba Mufti’s Twitter handle. Tweets appear to be of some hyper kid or enthu-cutlet rather than an ex CM.

— Smita Prakash (@smitaprakash) April 18, 2019