Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, could easily write a best-selling spy thriller.
It was, after all, his little investigative work that alerted the media to a top secret meeting between BJP general secretary Ram Madhav and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti in Srinagar over government formation in the state which has been under Governor’s Rule for over a month.
Here’s what happened.
Abdullah used his smartphone’s flight-tracker app to infer that something was up between the two political parties.
“Unscheduled flight VTJSG just landed in Srinagar after normal operation hours. Something is cooking with the PDP-BJP government formation,” he tweeted.
Even as he was tweeting, Madhav, who arrived in a chartered plane in Srinagar, was preparing to visit the residence of Mufti for a meeting to thrash out the terms of the coalition government. Madhav’s visit was kept a closely-guarded secret. PTI reported that even the state leaders of BJP and senior leaders of the PDP were not aware of the meeting.
A smug Abdullah, thoroughly enjoying his handiwork, tweeted:
“It’s amazing what the occasional alert on a flight tracker app will produce. Next time fly under the radar,” he tweeted to National Conference’s state spokesperson, Junaid Azim Mattu.
“The Madhav – Mehbooba meeting was planned to be kept a secret. Hence the late evening flight”. Mattu retweeted
He also said that the CID was pulled out from the SrinagarAirport ahead of the arrival of Madhav.
The marvels of modern technology!
Abdullah, an enthusiastic tweeter, responded to a story that compared him to James Bond with “Neither shaken nor stirred!”
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