"Just being in BJP does not give you certificate of being a nationalist. After failing to mislead the nation on the issue of JPC to go into the 2G scam, BJP has now come up with the idea of hoisting the flag at Lal Chowk," the former Chief Minister told reporters here.
"This (BJP) is a party which wants to destroy India and doesn`t want to strengthen it. They want to start new disputes. We want to improve the situation but they want to disturb that situation," he said on the sidelines of the National Conference on Green Design: Buildings and Habitats.
He wondered what point BJP would prove by hoisting the flag at Lal chowk when the same was done by Jawans of the CRPF. "This party is trying to hide its own failures in the garb of nationalism," he said.
Abdullah recalled that the then BJP President Murli Manohar Joshi had organised a similar flag hoisting in 1991.
"How did it help? Did India become strong by this or was weakened. And the flag was hoisted at midnight with a strong contingent of Army guarding him," Abdullah asked.
Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha has announced `Ekta Yatra` from Kolkata on January 12, which will culminate at Lal Chowk with the flag hoisting on January 26. Kolkata has been chosen because it is the birth place of party founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, who died in Kashmir in 1953.
The New and Renewable Energy Minister said there was no need for the BJP to hoist the flag as the state Chief Minister himself hoists the national flag at the Bakshi stadium in Srinagar during national festivals.
"Every Army, police and BSF camp does so. Then what is the need for them to do it? Is the flag hoisted by us not the national flag? Are we not not the citizens of India? Are they only the citizens of India," he posed.
He said the main opposition party should shun the path of playing divisive policies and work towards strengthening the nation.