Boycotting assembly elections will benefit BJP: Omar warns people

He said the election boycott had benefited the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in the Tral segment of Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency.

"If the trend of parliamentary polls continues in the assembly elections, then there will be a BJP MLA from Tral," Abdullah said addressing party workers here.

The NC vice-president was referring to the BJP's lead in the Tral assembly segment of south Kashmir's Anantnag Parliamentary constituency due to poll boycott.

Abdullah asked the people to imagine a scenario where there could be a BJP MLA from Tral -- a town where slain Hizbul Mujahiddeen commander Burhan Wani and Ansar Gazwatul-ul-Hind commander Zakir Mussa belonged to -- pointing out a contradiction because of the boycott of the polls.

"Imagine, there will be a BJP MLA from the same Tral where from Burhan Wani and Zakir Mussa were if there is a boycott," he said.

Later, referring to the controversy over his remarks with some news channels accusing him of praising the slain militant commanders, the former chief minister said he was only pointing out the strange contradiction of the boycott and did not praise anyone.

"I did no such thing. I was talking about how people should not boycott elections. I mentioned that Tral, which gave birth to Burhan & Musa also gave the BJP a lead in the LS elections because of a boycott.

"I was pointing out the strange contradiction of this. How is this praise?" Abdullah tweeted while responding to his criticism by a news channel.

"I get that there is a design to create a certain narrative around me & my party which suits the ruling establishment & while I expect no better from the north korean channels. I would expect channels like yours to use your own minds rather than reproduce the line that is given," he said in another tweet.