"I will not succumb to my critics and enemies and I am damn well going to do my job," a combative Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah declared on Friday.
Even as the controversy surrounding the death of his party, National Conference, worker showed no signs of abating, Omar ruled out his resignation as demanded by the opposition People's Democratic Party.
"I will do the job I have to do until I have the opportunity to do it. And that is it," the chief minister told mediapersons.
He did not regret getting involved in the matter in which two NC workers had complained that another party member Haji Syed Yusuf had taken over Rs one crore from them for getting them membership of the legislative council. He had handed over all the three to the police after which Yusuf had died.
"I did the right thing. Aside from being a CM, I am also a past president of the party and have an obligation to try and root out corruption within the party or anywhere else when things are brought to my notice," he said.
"I took cognisance of the allegation and instead of trying to deal with it in an underhand manner, I dealt with it in most transparent manner and handed over the case to the police," Omar said.
The Chief Minister said that he wanted to expedite an inquiry into the episode by a sitting judge of the High Court and the government was in correspondence with the Chief Justice.
The chief minister acknowledged that there is "something seriously wrong" when two NC workers believe that they can get what they want by paying money.
"The NC has never been a party that has sold seats or ministries. God knows that we don't need to...we do need to go in for some soul searching.
"We will do that but right now our focus has to ensure that truth prevails and true circumstances, and not fictions around Yusuf's death are allowed to come out," Omar said.
Asked if he had been in touch with the leadership of his coalition partner, Congress, he replied in the negative but went on to say that he had seen some statements from various Congress leaders including their national spokesman (who has supported him).
"My contacts are with Congress ministers, my coalition partners. They are my ministers. That is it. I will not be distracted from that," he added.
Lashing out at sections of the media for manner in which they were covering the controversy, Omar said "fictitious stories and lies that are being presented in the media is something I don't understand."
He added, "where they believe that I have done something wrong, by all means criticise me. Last year when trouble was there, almost every section of media criticised me and rightly so....this year I don't understand."
