“God forbid. No. What’s right is right,” said Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah when asked during an interview if he sounded “like a BJP spokesman” as he slammed the Congress’s claims on the reliability of EVMs. However, a closer look at Abdullah’s remarks shows a stark similarity to the language being used by the BJP against the Congress over its EVM tampering claims.

In fact, just a day before Abdullah set the cat among the pigeons by dismissing his ally Congress’s objection to EVMs, Union Home Minister Amit Shah used a similar line of attack to deflate the opposition party’s charge.

Speaking at the Agenda AajTak event, Amit Shah mocked Rahul Gandhi for “celebrating” Congress’s Lok Sabha performance after the party won 100 seats — its best performance in a decade.

Highlighting that the Lok Sabha polls were conducted using the same EVMs that Congress is blaming now, Shah said, “Rahul Gandhi believes that he won the Lok Sabha elections, so the EVMs were fine. In Jharkhand, Congress came to power, so the EVMs were fine. But, when the people defeated them in Maharashtra, the EVMs became faulty. Its like ‘a bad workman blaming his tools’.”

The next day, Abdullah used the same logic to taunt the Congress, saying the EVMs “cannot be a problem only when you lose elections”.

“When you get 100 plus MPs using the same EVMs, and you celebrate that as a sort of victory for your party, you can’t then, a few months later turn around and say… we don’t like these EVMs because now the election results aren’t going the way we would like them to,” the Chief Minister said in an interview with PTI.

The Congress is an alliance partner of Omar Abdullah’s National Conference in J&K. The remarks by Abdullah not only rattled the Congress, but widened the rift in the opposition camp.

The Congress, already irked over not finding a place in the J&K Cabinet, hit back at Abdullah, questioning his “changed approach” after becoming the Chief Minister.

“It’s the Samajwadi Party, NCP and Shiv Sena (UBT) that have spoken against EVMs. Please check your facts. Why this approach to our partners after being CM?” Congress MP Manickam Tagore tweeted.

OMAR ABDULLAH COSYING UP TO BJP?

In fact, Abdullah’s “changed approach” after the J&K polls has not gone unnoticed. On Monday, Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference chairman Sajjad Lone accused Abdullah of “surrendering” to the BJP and abandoning the fight for statehood restoration.

The controversy erupted in October after the first J&K Cabinet meeting saw no resolution against the Centre’s Article 370 move and focused only on statehood restoration.

The aggressive rhetoric against the BJP was gone and Abdullah appeared to soften the party’s stance on Article 370. “Our political stance has never changed. It is foolish to expect restoration of Article 370 from the BJP,” he had said.

Abdullah’s visit to Delhi to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi immediately after the polls had also raised eyebrows. “I will make every effort to ensure that the incoming government works for smooth relations both with the Lieutenant Governor and the Union government,” Abdullah had said.

His visit was not just limited to Modi. The J&K Chief Minister also met Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari.

With Jammu and Kashmir being a Union Territory, the Centre, through the L-G, has a hold on the day-to-day functioning of the government.

Lone had also criticised Abdullah then for his outreach to the Centre. “Seems a gentleman is desperate and bending his back backwards to meet Lords in Delhi,” Lone had tweeted.