Jammu, January 19, (Scoop News)-Challenging pro-independence NC and similar other Valley-based outfits to join debate on Article 370 to clinch the age-old controversy once and for all, Prof Hari Om, Political Advisor to State BJP President Jugal Kishore Sharma, on Sunday said that any failure of these outfits not to do so would simply mean that they have no argument even in their secessionist political dictionary to defend their stand on this Article. The best way in a democratic polity like ours to resolve controversial issues is debate and discussion in public and those who refrain from such approach have no right to remain in political arena, said Hari Om in the wake of National BJP President Rajnath Singh’s January 18 Ramlila Maidan statement on Article 370 that the BJP would have no objection if this Article stays in case it benefited the people, J&K State and the country as a whole.
“It was on December 1st that BJP PM candidate Narendra Modi urged the votaries of Article 370 to join the debate on Article 370 to find if this Article benefited the people and the state and gave a fillip to the process of J&K’s constitutional and political integration with India or it produced negative results. If they proved that it had benefited the people and the state, the BJP will abandon its age-old demand that this Article be abrogated. It was the most rational suggestion. But none of the protagonists of Article 370, who had been playing divisive politics in the Valley, exploiting the gullible people and playing with their religious sensitivities and misleading the people that its abrogation will result in de-accession of the state from India, came forward to join the debate to defend their case. Their unwillingness to join the debate vindicated the BJP stand that they have nothing to defend their stand,” said Hari Om.
Hari Om asserted that Article 370 has not only jeopardized the legitimate social, economic and political rights of the SCs, the STs, and the OBCs, hampered the process of integration and democratization, empowered the ruling elite to exercise unbridled legislative and executive powers at the cost of general public, embittered relations between the regions and promoted fissiparous tendencies in Kashmir, but has also made the life of refugees from West Pakistan a veritable hell on earth, as they do not enjoy any citizenship right in the state even after 67 years of their stay in J&K. “Article 370 is not an elixir to life as far as the people J&K are concerned; it is a deadly poison and atrocious Article that was adopted by the Indian Constituent Assembly on October 17, 1949 at the behest of Jawaharlal Nehru who wanted to pander to and appease secessionist and communal forces in the Kashmir Valley,” Hari Om said, and added that “the nation in general and people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh and minorities like Sikhs and Kashmiri Hindus in particular have been suffering for the wrong the Congress committed in its desperate attempt to pamper separatist leadership in the Valley”.
Political Advisor to State BJP President urged the suffering people of J&K to see through the anti-democratic and communal game plans of NC and similar other outfits and join the novel anti-Article 370 crusade so that this Article is removed from the Constitution and they obtain their rightful place in the country’s democratic polity. He said the people of the state have already suffered much at the hands of the anti-democratic ruling elite and it is the duty of each and every concerned citizen to call the bluff of the votaries of Article 370.
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