Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 2: Senior BJP leader and former Minister, Bali Bhagat today said that Article 370 was the biggest impediment to integration of erstwhile J&K State in the Indian dominion despite the same drafted in Part XXI of Indian Constitution titled as ‘temporary, transitional and special provision’.
In a hard hitting rejoinder to PDP chief, Mehbooba Mufti, the senior BJP leader said that leader of the dynastic party is living in fool’s paradise by dreaming that someday this temporary provision of the Constitution, declared null and void by the Modi Government shall be restored and is seeking early hearing of the case. He said that PM Narendra Modi has taken a monumental decision for complete integration of J&K with the Indian Union and therefore expecting reversal to this historical is nothing but daydreaming.
He said that gone are the days, when a bogus narrative was conceived claiming that atrocious Article 370 protects the distinct identity of Kashmiris and is beneficial for the people of J&K rather it was the mother of all ills facing the nation in Kashmir and was responsible for all the problems which people used to confront across the erstwhile State.
Bali Bhagat questioned Mehbooba that whether it is not true that Article 370 was a temporary provision and was adopted in October 1947 much against the wishes of an overwhelming majority of the people of the erstwhile State in general and Jammu and Ladakh in particular? He said that PDP and its ilk are wrongly supporting the Article which used to grant a differential treatment to the then State on purely communal grounds and empowered the solitary State in the Union to have the right to have a separate Constitution and separate flag and exercise residuary powers.
The senior BJP leader asserted that this contentious Article had created a republic within the Indian Republic and created an impression across the world that J&K is a disputed issue? He said that the discriminatory Article 370 used to allow invidious, humiliating and unjust distinctions between men and women of the then State and that the refugees from West Pakistan, mostly Dalits, did not enjoy citizenship rights which were available to the so-called permanent residents of the State?