SRINAGAR, June 28: Occupied Kashmir’s “chief minister” Farooq Abdullah said on Friday that New Delhi did not have the right to impose direct rule over the held state, in a rebuke to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

The premier on Friday pledged that polls in occupied Kashmir, due by Oct 14, would be free and said if need be his cabinet would put the held state under direct rule from New Delhi.

“I think it is time that fair elections are held in (held) Jammu and Kashmir and for that, if need be, I shall even have president’s rule,” Vajpayee told reporters in Lucknow, his home constituency.

Abdullah told reporters in Srinagar: “What mechanism or constitutional power does the centre have to impose president’s or governor’s rule?”

“Last time when we won the elections, there was governor’s rule in the (occupied) state,” he said.

The held state was last brought under direct Delhi rule in 1990, when Abdullah resigned after New Delhi appointed Jagmohan state governor against the “chief minister’s liking.

“What has happened now? Don’t they trust us?” asked Abdullah, whose party is a part of Vajpayee’s coalition in New Delhi.

Abdullah questioned why the premier did not impose president’s rule in the western state of Gujarat, one of the few states ruled by Vajpayee’s Hindu nationalist BJP, where at least 1,000 people — most of them Muslims — died this year in communal riots.

HIZB PLEDGE: The Hizbul Mujahideen pledged on Friday to keep up its struggle against Indian occupation.