Blood of our soldiers being traded for electoral victories: Farooq Abdullah

NEW DELHI: Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah on Thursday strongly criticized the alleged politicization of India's surgical strikes, saying the blood of India's jawans was being traded for electoral victories.
"Today, we want to sell our soldiers' blood for electoral victories? The condition is such that we want to trade their blood...but a soldier doesn't belong to any party, he belongs to the entire country," Farooq quoted as saying by ANI in Poonch, Jammu and Kashmir.

Farooq, who's the chief of the National Conference, also reminisced about former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's approach to foreign policy.
Farooq explained that the veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader used to say friends could be changed, but not neighbours. He then asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn't take a leaf out of his 'idol's' book.


It's worth noting that Farooq's son (and another former Jammu and Kashmir CM) Omar Abdullah took to Twitter last month to accuse the Bharatiya Janata Party of using the surgical strikes to gain political mileage.

Farooq Abdullah's comments came on a day when he strongly criticized the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) - BJP alliance while meeting with border dwellers in Sabjian and Chandak.
He alleged that the PDP had lied about being opposed to the BJP to gain seats in South Kashmir, and warned against the "divisive forces who have miserably failed to govern."
"They will try to sow seeds of hatred and mistrust among various segments of society as a diversionary tactic and the people must be beware of such attempts," he said.