Srinagar: Rejecting Delimitation Commission’s 2nd draft proposal on realignment of Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, PDP president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti Monday said the recommendations are aimed to take forward “BJP’s agenda of disfranchising Muslim majority belts” in the Union Territory.
Talking to the media on the sidelines of a party function here, Mufti claimed that BJP has been pursuing its 70-years-old agenda of “converting Mahatma Gandhi’s India into Nathuram Godse’s India for which Jammu and Kashmir is being used as a laboratory”.
“We are not surprised by the Commission’s report as PDP had already expressed apprehensions that this commission has been formed to take BJP’s agenda forward. There is no respect for law and the constitution, they ruined everything, BJP wants to disempower, rather disfranchise the majority community of Kashmir, Rajouri and Chenab belts to strengthen its own constituencies,” said Mufti.
She also alleged that the constituencies have been redrawn in such a way that casting votes or not at many places makes no difference.
“You see Jammu areas especially Poonch and Rajouri have been added to Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency. How could a parliamentarian reach out to the people of these places which are so distant from each-other and the road connecting them also remains closed for six months? I have time and again said that BJP runs Nathuram Godse’s agenda across India in including J&K,” she added.
She also alleged that BJP creates differences between Hindus and Muslims to secure its vote bank – “thus leaving the common masses disfranchised and disempowered.”
Mufti also said that all the issues will be taken up for discussion during a meeting of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), an amalgam of various political parties including National Conference to be convened on February 23 in Jammu.
“PAGD has called a meeting in Jammu on February 23 in which all these issues will be discussed threadbare,” she said.
