Jammu, December 29, (Scoop News)- Charging the Valley-based NC with insulting the nationalist people of the state and accusing the Congress of overtly and covertly supporting its ally’s divisive and communal formulations and demands, Prof Hari Om, Political Advisor to J&K BJP President Jugal Kishore Sharma, Sunday said that an overwhelming majority of population in the state is against Article 370 and wants not just complete integration with India but also a reformed political system that treats all the regions and all the people they house equally at all levels and in all spheres. “The December 27 statements of the NC that those who oppose Article 370 are ‘anti-national’, that Article 370 was incorporated in the Constitution to ‘strengthen’ bonds of J&K with Indian Dominion and that it has not harmed the interests of the people of the state were not only desperate attempts at misrepresenting the ground realities but were also insulting for the people of Jammu province and Ladakh region and SCs, STs, OBCs, refugees from West Pakistan, refugees from POJK and displaced Kashmiri Hindus, all victims of fanaticism and Article 370. These social groups and communities constitute over 72 per cent of the state population. They are religiously committed to linking their fate with New Delhi for bad, for worse,” said Prof Hari Om.
“An overwhelming majority of people in Jammu province and Ladakh region and SCs, STs, OBCs, refugees from West Pakistan, refugees from PoJK and displaced Kashmiri Hindus are vehemently opposed to Article 370, as it has hampered the process of integration with India and reduced them to a nullity for all practical purposes. They are also bitter critics of the archaic residency laws, as they discriminate between the people of J&K and rest of the country. Had there been no Article 370, the people of Jammu and Ladakh and the victims of the votaries of greater autonomy would have been leading a dignified life and exercising all the rights available under the Indian Constitution,” said Prof Hari Om.
Challenging the protagonists of autonomy and self-rule to join the debate with the BJP in public, Prof Hari Om said that the BJP would in no time expose them and their politics of autonomy with facts and figures. He said that even the Supreme Court of India in 1982 expressed its inability to dispense justice to the refugees from West Pakistan saying because of the peculiar constitutional position and constitutional anomalies it could not direct the J&K Government and the Union Government to concede their demand seeking citizenship rights.
Prof Hari Om further said that if the votaries of Article 370 are not willing to join the debate, they can ascertain the views of the people in Jammu province and Ladakh and camps housing all categories of refugees by adopting any other method to find if they want Article 370 or they want it to go lock, stock and barrel. He said that even the Gujjars and Bakerwals who profess the religion the votaries of Article 370 profess are against Article 370, as they are saying that “they are not against Article 370 but it is against them”. They have been saying that it is because of Article 370 that they have failed to get political reservation. This candid remark of the Gujjar leadership should clinch the whole issue and establish that not only non-Muslims but also a substantial chunk of Muslim society wants this discriminatory Article to be scrapped. Prof Hari Om reiterated that the BJP would take rest only after this issue is clinched to the satisfaction of the majority of population and the neglected regions and communities were fully empowered.