Srinagar, Oct. 18 -- Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Saturday ruled out any alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party and said the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir should not depend on which party is in power.

Addressing a press conference at Srinagar, Omar said that if statehood is dependent on the BJP coming to power in Jammu and Kashmir, then the BJP should be honest about it. "They should tell the people clearly that as long as there is a non-BJP government here, statehood will not be restored. But tying up with the BJP is out of the question. We have already seen how much damage the PDP-BJP alliance did to J&K."

On the implementation of the National Conference manifesto, he said, that the manifesto is for five years, no...