Jammu: Senior AAP leader and former minister Harsh Dev Singh on Sunday demanded restoration of a democratic government in Jammu and Kashmir to end the “proxy rule” of the Centre.
He said the BJP-led central government has “failed to deliver and to redeem” its promises and was trying hard to buy time and thereby resorting to “delay and deny” tactics over the issue of conduct of Assembly elections in J&K.
“The Legislative Assembly having been suspended on June 19, 2018, in J&K, the proxy rule of BJP led central government had completed its four years with no formal announcement of restoring democracy in the erstwhile state now reduced to a UT,” Singh said in a statement here.
“Reluctant to face the people in the wake of its multiple betrayals with peoples’ cause, it preferred repeated postponement of polls and continuation of its proxy rule in the UT,” he added.
Reiterating the need for the early elections to J&K Legislative Assembly, the AAP leader said any further delay in this regard would not only amount to subversion of democracy but also violate the orders of the Supreme Court which had categorically observed that fresh assembly elections in all states, wherein the legislatures were prematurely dissolved, needed to be conducted and completed within a period of six months.
He said a full-time elected government was a must to deal with the “armed insurgency” besides coping with the multiple issues confronting the UT.
“The militancy which had erupted in the early 1990s in J&K had gradually subsided after the formation of an elected government in the state. It had almost died down during popular governments but unfortunately got revived during the Centre’s proxy rule,” Singh claimed.
He said any delay in handing over power to the “sons of the soil” through free and fair elections could prove counterproductive and further complicate the already “volatile situation” in J&K.
