Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, June 30: Jammu and Kashmir National Conference today rejected BJP general secretary Ram Madhav’s diatribe on Art 370 as uncouth, saying the statement is reflective of BJP’s flawed and untaught version of history.
Party’s additional general secretary, Dr Sheikh Mustafa Kamal, while rejecting the statement of Ram Madhav said, “the provision of Art 370 was given to us by the then Constituent Assembly of India. The motion was supported by the then Home Minister Vallab Bhai Patel, and then Industries Minister Shyama Prasad Mukharjee. Maharaja Hari Singh only signed document of accession subject to conditions. Subsequently the State and the Centre entered into an accord, the Delhi agreement of 1952 as it is referred to as. The accord was ratified by the Parliament of India and subsequently by the Constituent Assembly of the State. The Art 370 of Indian Constitution mirrors the Instrument of Accession and even Supreme Court also opined that the Art 370 has acquired a permanent status.”
The NC leader warned that any mischief to tinker with the special position of the State will have far reaching consequences. “The people of J&K have traditionally guarded their identity with zeal. Any attempt to fiddle with the Article will also be analogous to a constitutional coup,” he added.
Pointing out that J&K was not the only State with such special provisions, Mustafa Kamal lamented that unfortunately Jammu and Kashmir has always been a scorn in the eyes of bigots because the very Muslim majority character of the State bothers them.
Rebuffing the statement of Ram Madhav on so called election rigging of 1987, Mustafa Kamal said the BJP leader wanted to suggest that the Supreme Court and the Election Commission were sleeping over the issue of rigging. “Had there been any rigging in 1987, many of the sitting Cabinet Ministers of Dr Farooq led Government would not have lost the elections. The pet blame on 1987 elections is not substantiated by facts and this propaganda was unleashed at the behest of anti NC forces headed by Late Mufti Syed, with whom the BJP hobnobbed in 2015 to form a Coalition Government,” he said and urged the Modi Government to use the massive mandate to initiate an aggressive dialogue with all the stake holders within the State.
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