Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Kumar Choudhary on Tuesday said the elected government in the Union territory is facing several challenges but continues to strive for the rights of the people with its “limited powers”.
“There are some people who want us to resign. But we are not among those who run away. We are workers of Sher-e-Kashmir, we will struggle and fight for the rights of the people. We will not show our backs,” Choudhary told reporters in Ganderbal district.
The deputy chief minister was responding to a question on whether the elected government has been able to fulfill election promises.
“You will have to understand that we do not have a state government. The gift we got from the PDP in the past — the special status and statehood we lost because of the PDP, which has resulted in a UT government having limited resources and limited powers.
“We do not have a free hand as we still have a dual governance system in which there is an elected government and an appointed administration,” he said.
Choudhary said that despite the difficulties and hurdles, the National Conference government is striving to address the problems of the people.
“We will fulfill all the promises made by NC president Farooq Abdullah and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. We are in the midst of a struggle. We have been given a mandate for five years, not 10 months, to fulfil our election promises. Then you can ask us which promises we fulfilled and which we did not,” he said.
Asked if the issue of statehood and restoration of Article 35A of the Constitution will be raised in the forthcoming assembly session, the deputy chief minister said these matters were discussed in the cabinet meeting held early today.
“We have discussed this in the cabinet meeting today. We have reiterated the stand on statehood. Leave aside statehood, the LG sahib seems to have slept over the business rules. Your questions are very genuine, but you have to understand the circumstances that we are going through,” he said.
Choudhary accused the opposition BJP and PDP, which were ruling Jammu and Kashmir in a coalition from 2015 to 2018, of ignoring the development of the region.
“The PDP and the BJP are claiming to have done a lot of development work in Jammu and Kashmir over the past 11 years.
“They should be asked if you have done so much in terms of widening roads and improving connectivity, why are we still stuck in (traffic) jams? Now we are not going to sit idle just because the PDP and the BJP or the LG administration did nothing,” he added.
