Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 8:The National Conference and other opposition parties’ move of forming a United Front to protect Article 35-A has invited a mixed response from various political outfits in Jammu.
Hitting out at the opposition for its stand on Article 35-A and accusing former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah of “misleading” the people on the issue, BJP today said “Article 35-A is an unconstitutional provision of law”.
State BJP spokesperson Arun Kumar Gupta said that “it is in operation without being passed in Parliament”.
“It is a great paradox that some article is being discussed in public domain without an understanding of its legal position,” he claimed.
“Article 35-A is an unconstitutional provision of law and finds no place in Indian Constitution,” he said while talking to reporters here.
“This provision has done a great harm by not allowing any body from the other parts of India to come and settle here,” he said.
This resulted in “total isolation” and no growth of institutions required to generate employment, revenue, resources and for the overall economy of the State,” he said.
He hit out at the opposition parties and particularly Farooq Abdullah, for raking up the issue to “mislead” the people of J&K.
“BJP cannot influence court and NGOs which are in legal dispensation. We would suggest NC and other parties including Congress file applications in Supreme Court, argue there, rather than misleading people of J & K for their own political gains,” he said.
“Any discussion or statement on this amounts to contempt of the highest court of the country where the case is under consideration,” said Gupta.
Referring to all-party meeting to form a united front for protecting Article 35-A, he said that the time had come to expose the “double speak” of the parties.
“If the migration of people from other States could destroy the basic culture of J&K, States like Gujarat, Himachal and Punjab would have perished by now,” the BJP leader claimed.
Appalled at the Kashmir centric political parties getting united to issue threats of dire consequences in case the Article 35A is tinkered, Panthers Party activists, led by JKNPP Chairman Harsh Dev Singh, staged a vociferous protest demonstration against the BJP for its criminal silence over the issue here today.
Seeking repeal of the said Article in the interest of the State and the country while describing the same as illegal unconstitutional and void abinitio, the JKNPP activists also torched an effigy of the ruling BJP.
Lambasting the BJP for its servile posturing over the issue, Harsh Dev Singh said that while the Kashmir centric parties had united to safeguard the Article 35A, the Saffron party preferred to play a second fiddle in the alliance for the loaves of power. He stressed that Article 35A was unconstitutional as it had been extended to the State by virtue of Presidential order in 1954 and without having been passed by the Parliament which rendered it void abinitio.
JKNPP president Balwant Singh Mankotia, Young Panthers president Yash Paul Kundal and others also spoke on the occasion.
Meanwhile, senior leader of the JKNPP, Prof Bhim Singh has asked Dr Farooq Abdullah to express immediate apology before the Supreme Court of India for the contempt of the court which he has committed by challenging the authority of the Apex Court for hearing a writ petition challenging the Constitutionality of Article 35(A).
Maintaining that Article 35(A) is not the creation of the Parliament of India nor this Article is Constituent of temporary Article 370, Prof Singh said that Article 35 was amended by a Presidential order in 1954 without the authority of law.
Terming Article 35-A as totally absurd, illegal, unconstitutional and void, which has not been published even by the Government in the books of the Indian Constitution, Prof Singh stressed that the SC was competent to take notice of this serious legal issue suo-moto. He described the meeting of the outdated politicians in Kashmir who have been rejected by the people of Kashmir itself as highly objectionable, which amounts to the contempt of the Supreme Court as it has challenged the authority of the Apex Court from a political platform.
Panun Kashmir has also condemned Dr Farooq Abdullah for threatening 2008 type agitation on the repealing of Article 35 A of the Indian Constitution.
Vijay Bhat, president Panun Kashmir, while addressing a meeting in Jammu, reminded Dr Abdullah that he is not the sole custodian of Indian Constitution and it is the Indian Parliament which has every constitutional and legal right to amend or repeal any part of Constitution. “The only right Dr Abdullah as MP has to oppose it but not to hold entire Indian Parliament to ransom,” he added.
The Panun Kashmir convenor Ravinder Jalali warned former CM that such anti-national and pro-separatist move will not help him in rebuilding his ground which has been washed away with the passage of time. “By threatening repetition of 2008 like agitation he has only made the wounds of Jammuites a fresh as the 2008 agitation was anti-India, anti-Hindu and anti-Jammu, he said and added that it is the habit of NC and other Kashmir centric leaders to issue ridiculous statements to keep anti India campaign and anti India sentiment live in Kashmir
However, former Union Minister and ex PCC president Prof Saif-ud-Din Soz has said that the J&K Opposition parties, led by Dr Farooq Abdullah, have taken the correct stand on Article 35-A, which is being challenged by the RSS before the Supreme Court of India. “It means that the mainstream parties in J&K State and the Hurriyat Conference are on the same page, on this issue. In a way, the RSS has lent a helping hand to the political parties in J&K State to forge unity on a very vital question for the future of Kashmir,” he said.
Prof Soz also claimed that the J&K chapter of the BJP was visibly facing an awkward situation of isolation on this issue. “In its narrow approach to Kashmir politics, the RSS has created a very difficult problem directly for PM Modi, who could now ask the RSS to withdraw the case from the Supreme Court, before it is too late,” he said and described Article-35A as most prominent feature of the J&K Constitution, which is directly connected with the Article-370 of the Constitution of India. “The trick that RSS wants to play by asking the Supreme Court of India to revoke Article-35 A, has the potential of creating a commotion in the country, especially, in the Jammu and Kashmir State,” he warned.
Sunil Dimple, president Jammu West Assembly Movement, has also opposes the abrogation of Article 370 and dilution of Art 35-A.
Addressing a press conference, here today, Dimple appealed all the political parties not to play politics on the Article 370 and dilution of Art 35-A as this will open the gate ways of poverty and unemployment here. “If article 370 is abolished, the Jammu Kashmir State will loose its thousands of years old Dogra culture and identity,” he claimed.
Follow our WhatsApp channel