New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has taken aim at multiple fronts—first distancing himself from the Congress party’s allegations against Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), then expressing disappointment at the post-election silence within the INDIA opposition bloc, and finally commenting sharply on US President Donald Trump’s meeting with Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir.
In an interview with The Economic Times, Abdullah dismissed the Congress party’s repeated claims of EVM irregularities following its loss in the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections. “So what you hear from the Congress in terms of its reservations about the process of elections, this is all the Congress’s own point of view. I don’t share it,” Abdullah said. “I’m not given to making excuses for things I don’t succeed at.”
He stressed that credibility should be consistent. “If I don’t have a problem with the way elections are conducted when I win, I certainly can’t have a problem with them when I lose,” he said. Abdullah added that his own party had performed better than expected in the October assembly elections, and making excuses post-defeat was neither productive nor credible.
He also took a jab at the INDIA bloc, of which both his party and Congress are part, pointing out the complete lack of coordination after the Lok Sabha polls. “We haven’t met even once as an alliance after the results. That says something,” he noted, hinting at growing disunity and inertia within the much-touted opposition front.
Abdullah didn’t stop there. Responding to US President Donald Trump hosting Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir for lunch at the White House—without the presence of senior civilian Pakistani officials—Abdullah remarked that the move should serve as a reality check.
“We can’t dictate to the US President whom he should invite for dinner,” Abdullah said. “We used to think the US President was our close friend and would respect that, but the US does what benefits it—they don’t care about any other country.”
Trump, during the Oval Office interaction, praised Munir’s role in preventing military escalation between India and Pakistan. “The reason I had him here was to thank him for not going into the war and ending it,” Trump said, referring to the period of heightened tension following India’s Operation Sindoor, which was launched in retaliation to the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 that killed 26 people.
Interestingly, this was one of the rare occasions where Trump stopped short of directly claiming credit for the de-escalation—a departure from his earlier narrative where he repeatedly stated he “stopped the war” between India and Pakistan.
Trump also touched upon Iran, stating that Pakistan “knows Iran better than most” and suggesting that their insight had been valuable in navigating the unfolding situation in West Asia.
Abdullah’s comments underscore both his growing impatience with his opposition partners and his realism regarding India’s place in international diplomacy. In one sweep, he called out domestic political doublespeak and foreign policy illusions—making it clear that for him, accountability begins at home, and trust in global alliances should be rooted in pragmatism, not sentiment.
