Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said on Tuesday that if Jammu and Kashmir had followed the roadmap set by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, “we would not have been in the situation that we are in right now”, reported The Indian Express.

Abdullah was speaking during the obituary references on the second day of the Assembly.

Members of the House paid tribute to 57 former Jammu and Kashmir legislators, including Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani, and prominent national politicians who had passed away since 2018, the year of the last Assembly session in the erstwhile state.

Vajpayee was the prime minister from 1998 to 2004 and had based his Kashmir policy on three principles: insaniyat (humanity), jamhooriyat (democracy) and Kashmiriyat (cultural values of Kashmiris).

“He is no more and we lost our way,” Abdullah said on Tuesday.

The chief minister also praised the former prime minister for his going to Pakistan’s Lahore and visiting the Minar-e-Pakistan in 1999.

The Minar-e-Pakistan is a national monument in Lahore built in the 1960s to commemorate the Lahore Resolution, which led to the creation of Pakistan.

“At the border, he [Vajpayee] maintained that we can change friends but not neighbours,” said Abdullah. “He said dialogue is the way out and extended the hand of friendship despite the setbacks. I have worked with him as a minister…He always tried to improve the situation in Jammu and Kashmir… Whenever the situation in Jammu and Kashmir worsened, he said that dialogue is the way forward.”

Abdullah said that Vajpayee had opened cross-border roads to bring people from both sides closer, but now those roads had been closed, and efforts were being made to keep people apart.

He said that Vajpayee's efforts to build bridges and relationships “should inspire us to continue working towards peace and understanding in the region”.

Vajpayee realised that not addressing the autonomy resolution passed by the Farooq Abdullah-led government in 2000 was a hasty decision, The Economic Times quoted the chief minister as saying.

“He had then nominated late Arun Jaitley to initiate a dialogue process with the Jammu and Kashmir government on the autonomy resolution, but unfortunately the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] government did not continue,” he said.

A key feature of the autonomy resolution referred to Article 370 of the Constitution as “special”, as against “temporary”.

Article 370 had given special status to the erstwhile state. The constitutional provision was abrogated by the BJP-led Union government in August 2019. The Centre at the time also bifurcated the state into two Union territories: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

The chief minister also paid tributes to BJP leader and Nagrota legislator Devender Singh Rana, who passed away last week, reported The Indian Express.

Rana had been a close aide of Abdullah before joining the Hindutva party two years ago.