Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 2: Prime Minister, Narendra Modi should announce restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and go for early elections to the State Assembly at the earliest, demanded All Parties United Morcha (APUM) in a meeting here, today.
The meeting was chaired by veteran politician and ex MP Sheikh Abdul Rehman and attended by leaders of Congress, NC, PDP, IDP, CPIM and other social organizations. It demanded that the statehood is the right of citizens of J&K and it was arbitrarily snatched on August 5, 2019.
As a first step towards restoration of trust amongst the people, the statehood should be restored without any further delay, the meeting demanded and urged the PM to announce it on this year’s Independence Day, if BJP Government is sincere to restore the confidence of the people.
The meeting also decided to go ahead with the scheduled programming of holding series of protest dharnas at all districts to expose the betrayal of BJP Government with the people of Jammu and Kashmir especially the youth.
It questioned the delay in the restoration of statehood and democracy in Jammu and Kashmir as Governor’s rule was imposed in June 2018 and State Assembly was dissolved. On one hand Government claims normalcy and on other hand it is not ready to restore statehood and not coming clear on holding early Assembly elections, it added.
Every time it is said that statehood shall be restored at appropriate time but what is appropriate time and conditions for that, are not disclosed, the meeting said. “If situation has improved than before, why delay in restoration of statehood”? It asked.
With regard to holding elections, the all parties demanded that it should be held under statehood at the earliest.
The meeting blamed the BJP Government of deliberately making vague statements on the issue of Assembly elections. It is always the prerogative of the Government in security sensitive regions to decide about holding elections but thereafter, on the requisition of the Government, it is the Election Commission which undertakes the exercise to take a call and decide about the schedule of elections, it added.
The Government must come out clearly on the issue of elections and give level playing field to all opposition political parties and give due security cover, at par with ruling BJP, as it is being observed that there is huge discrimination over the issue with the opposition, most of whom are exposed to designs of militants.
The representative who participated were Rattan Lal Gupta, NC, Ravinder Sharma,Congress, Kishore Kumar, CPM, Varinder Singh Sonu, PDP, I D Khajuria, IDP, Narinder Singh Khalsa, Aakali Dal Amritsar, Satish Kumar, PDP, Narinder Khajuria, IDP.
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