Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference on Sunday stated that rescinding J&K of its status is part of incremental assaults by ruling BJP on country’s democratic, federal, secular visage and that any delay in restoring people’s abridged constitutional rights will imperil country’s federal structure and diversity.
In a statement, Party’s Additional General Secretary Dr Sheikh Mustafa Kamal said no longer constrained by due respect for the country’s celebrated diversity, the BJP, ever since it has come to power has bulldozed the country’s democratic, and secular visage.
He said that the unilateral, unconstitutional and undemocratic decisions have been rejected by the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. He said the spiteful decisions taken by the ruling dispensation at New Delhi have not fared well in any region of J&K. “Unconstitutional nullification of Articles 370, 35-A is part of a bigger agenda of BJP to make the country homogeneous and rob it off its prized diversity and socio-cultural plurality. The BJP was supplanting its own agenda as the agenda of the country. The promised development to J&K has met the same fate as that of the promised ‘Ache Din’ to the country,” he said.
Remarking on the ongoing situation in Jammu and Kashmir, Kamal said that the people of J&K had made it clear to the ruling BJP that there could be no trade off between their political aspirations and development. Ruling BJP at New Delhi, he said on the contrary has been trying to change the gear of local politics by supplanting its stooges. “Throttling democracy, doing away with an empowered legislature, and caging of political leaders has put the very supreme interests of the country at stake. The political void that has been created cannot be filled by having local body elections. In reality what is at stake is the definition of democracy. Genuine democracy requires that the people of Jammu and Kashmir be granted institutional protection to protect their voices from being swamped. It was the wide-ranging constitutional guarantees under art 370, 35-A that ensured it. Unfortunately the August 5th move of ruling BJP overlooked such expediency, and the successive orders and notifications were also bereft of any provision for demographic protection, vibrant democracy, and protection of cultural, educational, employment, and land rights of locals. This reveals it all. One most galling aspect of August policy has been the dwindling number of natives of J&K from decision making bodies,” he said.
He said unless the political aspirations of the people of J&K were not addressed, the so-called development activity, if there was any, wouldn’t yield anticipated results.
