Kashmir's Famous Five missing in action

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The big daddies and their spunky kids will sit out of the Lower House. Six unknown faces, with no or little repute in Delhi circles, will walk into the Lok Sabha complex. In a way it portends well, given that the old and jaded have failed Kashmir and its people.

Among the daddy troika of Kashmir politics, the effervescent but non-serious Farooq Abdullah will add glitz and glamour to the Upper House. He will crack a joke or sing a papa number inviting laughter from his colleagues.

The canny Ghulam Nabi Azad will sit next to him and laugh too. But that is not all he will do. He has a tough job to do, months after the PDP - People's Democratic Party - and God rendered him jobless last autumn. Azad's new job, a challenging one though, is to salvage the Sonia Gandhi-headed Congress in states where the Lotus has bruised and blushed the Hand.

The ageing and shrewd Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, too, is no longer Delhi-bound. His idea of greener pastures have now shrunk to the Valley. Not for himself alone. Over the next few years, find him doing some real spadework, making fertile the political ground for his daughter Mehbooba Mufti. The senior surely would be thinking of passing on the baton to the fiery Mufti. Or has he any other option?

Talking of options, one young man had many. But then the racy Omar Abdullah chose that of leading a state with its past and present as chequered as ever. Choosing state over Parliament, will the ever-yielding Abdullah make any difference here and there; apart from of course, the wonderful and extempore `I am an Indian Muslim' speech he made in last year's Parliament session? Way to go Mr Omar Abdullah.

Also not going to Lok Sabha is Kashmir's popular woman politician Mehbooba Mufti. With a preaching daddy in tow, she is slowly but surely trying at enhancing grassroot support structure to the fledgling PDP, the party she hopes will help her wrest power from the National Conference six years hence. So Mufti not going means the famous five of the Kashmir politics will not go to Lok Sabha, but certainly two, Azad and Dr Farooq, stay as friends in Rajya Sabha. They will have the chirpy Saif-ud-din Soz in company.

Some experience there. But for the six places in the Lok Sabha hall, some new friends. But six in a house of 545 is a dew drop in a sea.